news links: December 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

Readers Tell BusinessWeek How to Blog Better

Readers Tell BusinessWeek How to Blog Better

Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek's popular Blogspotting blog published this June 4 request:
"In a meeting with the people who contribute to our 29 BW blogs, online executive editor John Byrne said that the goal is to create the business and finance site with 'the deepest and most meaningful engagement' with our community. 'It matters more than anything else.'

"It's not entirely clear to me that counting comments is the best way to measure engagement. But none of us came up with a better idea. Any suggestions?"

In the week since then, commenters have posted many suggestions, resources and insights, including these:

Joe Pemberton: "Tracking links (not just trackbacks) from short URL services (Bit.ly), bookmarking sites (Delicious) and mentions on Twitter a better gauge of how relevant blog content is."

Leighsah: "I don't think [comments are a good measuring stick] unless the readers can vote on others' comments. Sometimes I don't have anything to add to another's comments, but I want to voice my support. Other times I think the comment must have been written by the original poster's mother and is so off-base I can't believe the comment was even written. Either way, sometimes I don't have the time to write a response but would like to voice my support or opposition."

Jay Deragon: "Your blogs should be distributed through multiple points of attraction such as Linkedin groups, Twitter, Facebook Groups, Stumble Upon, Ning-centric platforms, related topical media blogs, etc. Distribution ensures attraction if you put the content in context to the audience."

Joseph Manna: "Turn over a bit of editorial control to users with [customer feedback system] UserVoice. I would think it would be nifty if BW leveraged UserVoice to allow tips, suggestions, hate mail and other commentary to the editorial team so they know what content people are dying to see. When you write about, respond to the suggestion and mark it as 'completed.' It might just be a great experiment that sticks."

Kyle Austin: "I think there needs to be more chatter on your end about how these blogs interact with what you're doing with [the Businessweek collaborative resource site] Business Exchange. I go to the categories there a lot and a lot of the BW blog content hasn't been added under the categories. Use that as the first aggregator and then leverage Digg, StumbleUpon and everything else."

Chrys Wu: "What about rethinking content and coverage? For example, you write it's hard for you to decide which [BW] blog to publish a post in because the differentiation is so minute. Imagine what readers miss cause they can't tell either, and randomly choose one blog over the other..."

Niti Bhan: "I know I stopped bothering to comment after the last design made the commenter's name static rather than a hyperlink. That's part of the give and take in conversation and community in any social forum, the ability to find out whom you're talking to and with."

Jon Garfunkel: "I've been here from the beginning (2005). And I'm sorry to say I moved on. The comment moderation just made it not fun, and the weblog layout makes it heard to read older stories."

... I was glad to see that Baker participated in the comment thread and acknowledged many specific suggestions. He indicated there would be a forthcoming "lessons post." It'll be interesting to see which, if any, reader comments eventually are tried.

In the meantime, online publishers should read this complete comment thread. The ideas are good and are a great example of why and how to ask your online community for input on how you serve them via your site and elsewhere.

source: poynter

Life must be lived as play

The Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Years Eve (file)
"All great achievements require time." - Maya Angelou

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde

Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock lock lips
The only disability in life is a bad attitude” ~Scott Hamilton

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.
Dale Carnegie

"Life must be lived as play." - Plato

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Ernest Hemingway

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." - Albert Einstein

motivation
"We owe a lot to Indians, who taught us how to count, w/out which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made" ~ Einstein

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. ~Albert Einstein

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Success must be continually practiced

"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." ~Carol Burnet

Benjamin Franklin

TOMORROW every fault is to be amended... but tomorrow never comes." ~Benjamin Franklin

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, holds the company's latest device: the iPad
The way to love anything is to realise that it may be lost - Gilbert K Chesterton

It is never too late to BE... what you might have been." ~George Eliot

***

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Matheran
Nothing is so strong as gentleness, & nothing is so gentle as true strength ~St. Francis

Gisele Monterio
"Any man who lets a woman pick what he should wear... you gotta draw the line somewhere as a man." - Tom Brady

Devika Tripathi
Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost." Robert H. Schuller

To LIVE is the rarest thing in the world. Most people E X I S T... that is all." ~Oscar Wilde

Hayden-Panettiere
Success must be continually practiced or it will take wings and fly away.
-Kenneth Harmon

inspirational quotations

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Education is what survives...

Tim Berners-Lee

"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. " - B.F. Skinner

"A good teacher must know how to arouse the interest of the pupil in the field of study for which he is responsible. He must himself be a master in the field of study and be in touch with the latest developments in the subject, he must himself be a fellow traveller in the exciting pursuit of knowledge..." — Dr. Sarvpalli Radhakrishnan

canal-bikes-amsterdam

“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

Bertrand Russell

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”
timlebon

Bertrand Russell

“Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires”

Bertrand Russell

“Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.”

Bertrand Russell

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

Bertrand Russell

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.” – James Dean

"As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do." – Zachary Scott

“A great leader's courage to fulfil his vision comes from passion, not position.” - John Maxwell

"Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death." – Betty Bender

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Worst Reasons To Get Married Video - AskMen.com

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men

"The Laws of Nature have no pity." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Lion Peak, New Zealand
Top 10 Greatest Speeches

The Greek philosopher Plato, author of the Socratic dialogues.

Best Line: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."

------
Patrick Henry
Best Line: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! — I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

----
Frederick Douglass
Best Line: "Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future."

--------
Abraham Lincoln
Best Line: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

---
Susan B. Anthony
Best Line: "It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people — women as well as men."

----
Winston Churchill
Best Line: "You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy."

----
John F. Kennedy
Best Line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."

---
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Best Line: "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
---
Lyndon B. Johnson
Best Line: "There is no moral issue. It is wrong — deadly wrong — to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights. I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer."

---
Ronald Reagan
Best Line: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

-----
Indra Nooyi's mantras for success
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/sep/12sld1.htm

CAT 2008: Tips to boost your vocab
http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2008/sep/05cat1.htm

The Better Sex Diet
http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/228

7 Sex-Boosting Foods
http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/18

America's best country inns and hotels
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26407764/

48 Ways to Be Nice and Improve the World Around You
http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/package/0,21861,1734800-1134948,00.html?xid=weeklynew

s

Meal balancer
http://www.prevention.com/mealbalancer/

India's most admired entrepreneurs
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/sep/10sli1.htm
----------------------------------------------------

Oprah Winfrey
She didn't create the talk-show format. But the compassion and intimacy she put into it have created a new way for us to talk to one another
====================================
Waving the flags of Brazil and the U.S., Pele is carried off the field by players of both teams at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Oct. 1, 1977 after his final game. Pele played for both teams in the exhibition — the New York Cosmos and Santos, his former team in Brazil

Pelé
He dominated soccer for two decades with a passion matched only by that of his fans throughout the world
====================

Mohandas Gandhi
In an age of empire and military might, he proved that the powerless had power and that force of arms would not forever prevail against force of spirit
The Mahatma, the Great Soul, endures in the best part of our minds, where our ideals are kept: the embodiment of human rights and the creed of nonviolence. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is something else, an eccentric of complex, contradictory and exhausting character most of us hardly know. It is fashionable at this fin de siecle to use the man to tear down the hero, to expose human pathologies at the expense of larger-than-life achievements. No myth raking can rob Gandhi of his moral force or diminish the remarkable importance of this scrawny little man. For the 20th century — and surely for the ones to follow — it is the towering myth of the Mahatma that matters.

Consciously or not, every oppressed people or group with a cause has practiced what Gandhi preached. Sixties kids like me were his disciples when we went South in the Freedom Summer to sit in for civil rights and when we paraded through the streets of America to stop the war in Vietnam. Our passionate commitment, nonviolent activism, willingness to accept punishment for civil disobedience were lessons he taught. Martin Luther King Jr. learned them; so did Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi, the unknown Chinese who defied the tanks in 1989 and the environmental marchers in Seattle a few weeks ago.

It may be that this most Indian of leaders, revered as Bapuji, or Father of the Nation, means more now to the world at large. Foreigners don't have to wrestle with the confusion Indians feel today as they judge whether their nation has kept faith with his vision. For the rest of us, his image offers something much simpler — a shining set of ideals to emulate. Individual freedom. Political liberty. Social justice. Nonviolent protest. Passive resistance. Religious tolerance. His work and his spirit awakened the 20th century to ideas that serve as a moral beacon for all epochs.

Half a century after his death, most of us know little of Gandhi's real history or how the Mahatma in our minds came to be. Hundreds of biographies uncritically canonize him. Winston Churchill scorned him as a half-naked fakir stirring up sedition. His generation knew him as a radical political agitator; ours shrugs off a holy man with romantic notions of a pure, pre-industrial life. There is no either-or. The saint and the politician inhabited the same slender frame, each nourishing the other. His struggle for a nation's rights was one and the same with his struggle for individual salvation.

The flesh-and-blood Gandhi was a most unlikely saint. Just conjure up his portrait: a skinny, bent figure, nut brown and naked except for a white loincloth, cheap spectacles perched on his nose, frail hand grasping a tall bamboo staff. This was one of the century's great revolutionaries? Yet this strange figure swayed millions with his hypnotic spell. His garb was the perfect uniform for the kind of revolutionary he was, wielding weapons of prayer and nonviolence more powerful than guns.

Saints are hard to live with, and this one's personal habits were decidedly odd. Mondays were "days of silence," when he refused to speak. A devoted vegetarian, he indulged in faddish dietetic experiments that sometimes came near to killing him. He eschewed all spices as a discipline of the senses. He napped every day with a mud poultice on abdomen and brow. He was so insistent on absolute regularity in his daily regimen that he safety-pinned a watch to his homespun dhoti, synchronized with the clock at his ashram. He scheduled his bowel movements for 20 minutes morning and afternoon. "The bathroom is a temple," he said, and anyone was welcome to chat with him there. He had a cleansing enema every night.
(TIME)
=============================
TIME Person of the Century:
Albert Einstein
He was the pre-eminent scientist in a century dominated by science. The touchstones of the era — the Bomb, the Big Bang, quantum physics and electronics — all bear his imprint

----------------------------------
50 Greatest Quotes on Men
Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do. ~ Napoleon Hill

1. I never liked the men I loved and never loved the men I liked. ~ Fanny Brice
2. You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
3. Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. ~ George Bernard Shaw
4. When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart’s the last part moves, her last, the tongue. ~ Benjamin Franklin
5. Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld
6. If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see. ~ Henry David Thoreau
7. All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal
8. The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends. ~ William Hazlitt
9. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. ~ Oscar Wilde
10. God made woman beautiful and foolish; beautiful, that man might love her; and foolish, that she might love him. ~ Unknown
11. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot. ~ Oscar Wilde
12. It’s not the men in my life that counts, it’s the life in my men. ~ Mae West
13. A man may conquer a million men in battle but one who conquers himself is, indeed, the greatest of conquerors. ~ Buddha
14. Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place. ~ Billy Crystal
15. Men play the game; women know the score. ~ Roger Woddis
16. Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on. ~ Winston Churchill
17. There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten. ~ Samuel Johnson
18. When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself. ~ Louis Nizer
19. Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
20. Few men have been admired of their familiars. ~ Michel de Montaigne
21. Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. ~ Kin Hubbard
22. If it’s true that men are such beasts, this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers. ~ Doris Day
23. All men [are] of one metal, but not in one mold. ~ John Lyly
24. Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth. ~ Chuck Norris
25. Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. ~ Victor Hugo
26. Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against. ~ Thomas Carlyle
27. Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other? ~ George Eliot
28. A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself. ~ Jose Marti
29. The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men. ~ Julius Charles Hare
30. Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them. ~ Marilyn Moroe
31. There are more men ennobled by study than by nature. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
32. Young men preen. Old men scheme. ~ Mason Cooley
33. If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman. ~ Margaret Thatcher
34. A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age. ~ Robert Frost
35. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. ~ Samuel Johnson
36. Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
37. The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall. ~ Francis Bacon
38. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. ~ Aristotle
39. Men should be like Kleenex, soft, strong and disposable. ~ Cher
40. There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. ~ Will Rogers
41. Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so. ~ Samuel Butler
42. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. ~ William Shakespeare
43. Men are only as great as they are kind. ~ Elbert Hubbard
44. Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
45. Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change. ~ Confucius
46. In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high. ~ Henry David Thoreau
47. It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
48. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. ~ Frederick Douglass
49. Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
50. Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know there are way too many quotes on men to simply include in a post. If you got some time and have any quotes on men, please take a moment and share with the rest of us.

Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild. ~ Immanuel Kant

Saturday, December 25, 2010

10 Best Books of the Year

Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet goes backstage after her win for best actress at the 81st annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood

Book World's 10 Best Books of the Year
AMERICAN RUST, by Philipp Meyer
A GATE AT THE STAIRS, by Lorrie Moore
THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE, by Orhan Pamuk
THE STALIN EPIGRAM, by Robert Littell
WOLF HALL, by Hilary Mantel
Nonfiction

FAMILY PROPERTIES: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, by Beryl Satter
HALF THE SKY: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
STITCHES: A Memoir, by David Small
A STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families, by Michael Holroyd

Secrets of a successful start-up

Secrets of a successful start-up
Entrepreneur. Angels. Venture capital. Innovation. Acquisitions. And, of course, the ubiquitous 'startup'. All these terms have become part of the imagination of a large section of the current generation. Events, blogs and articles on entrepreneurship and start-ups are proliferating.

Therefore, it might be naive to ask: What exactly is a start-up? Is the corner coffee or chai store a start-up? And what about an executive who starts a consulting company? Is every small business a start-up?

While most start-ups do begin small, not all small businesses are start-ups.

Fundamentally, they are engines for wealth creation. Start-ups serve as crucial means of growth of a country's economy as they create wealth in society and generate jobs. A start-up is the first step on the road to building a new company; the stage, size and rate of growth that the company achieves are important elements in determining whether the 'start-up' is indeed a start-up.

Typically, a start-up will grow at supernormal rates while adding tremendous value to itself. To achieve such levels of growth and to generate such value, a team and capital are required. With the emergence of angel, private equity and venture capital investors, more and more entrepreneurs in India (including 'start-up' ones) are turning to external funding to help grow their businesses.

The corner coffee shop is usually run by someone forced into entrepreneurship out of necessity, not choice. There's no team or growth plan since income generation is the primary goal. However, if the corner coffee shop has plans to become a national or even international franchise (like Cafe Coffee Day in India or Starbucks in the US) and makes the appropriate efforts, we can term it a start-up.

Someone who gets tired of routine corporate life, quits and starts a consulting company cannot be said to be running a start-up. This person is in the income substitution business. He doesn't want the complexities of creating a wealth-generating business.

Do you have the appetite for high achievement and the willingness to take risks to create wealth for yourself and others? Or are you better off in your job or in an income-substitution business? A startup is not just another job. It requires passion, energy and commitment. It is not to be pursued for glamour or because of peer pressure.

While market conditions are important to consider while planning a start-up, they cannot be the sole determinant. A rising tide lifts all boats. So, it is natural to expect a lot of entrepreneurial activity when there's huge optimism and a lot of investment capital available.

But when the mood is sober, investment capital harder to come by and the stockmarket is flat, entrepreneurial activity becomes subdued. For serious entrepreneurs, there's no good or bad time.

They have a long-term plan, have the team to execute it, go after large market opportunities and have a defensible business model. Therefore, for them starting a venture during less enthusiastic times implies lower operating costs while dealing with realistic expectations.

The locus of activities of the Indian consumer encompasses sectors from education and financial services to retail and hospitality. Entrepreneurs need to understand the specific opportunities, develop a low-cost business model, leverage technology and deliver goods and services in an efficient manner.

Developing a low-cost business model requires a deep understanding of the opportunity, delivery processes, managing costs and cash flows. Technology can play a big role in reaching partners, reducing delivery costs and providing low-cost customer care.

Sanjay Anandaram is a startup mentor and advisor, also involved with Nasscom, TiE, IIM-Bangalore and INSEAD business school in promoting entrepreneurship.

source: rediff

Shouvick Mukherjee | Both Bangalore and Beijing are important for us - Corporate News - livemint.com

Shouvick Mukherjee | Both Bangalore and Beijing are important for us - Corporate News - livemint.com: "Internet firm Yahoo Inc. has been operating a research and development (R&D) centre in India for the past 10 years. The centre’s contribution to intellectual property (IP) filed by Yahoo globally has increased to almost one-third the past two years, from 10-12% previously."

Friday, December 24, 2010

Thursday, December 23, 2010

6 life lessons: from the dead

Toy guitars in the historic Mexican area of Los Angeles, California

“There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.” ~ Robert Graves

the thoughts you are thinking today are planting the seeds of the results you'll be experiencing tomorrow - Robin Sharma

6 life lessons: from the dead
1. Be nice
2. Don't be mean
3. If you want to live long, retire young ...
4. Or don't retire at all
5. You don't have to be rich -- or even have a home
6. Act now

source: boston