Monday, February 12, 2007

Marketing Myself : Is it really needed

Coming out of college, fresh and new ideas in mind. Working Hard was all that I thought was needed to grow in an organization. I used to think that guys who blow their own trumpets are guys who are not confident about themselves or are shameless.

It was my first Manager ( whom i respect and learnt a lot from ), who taught us the importance to respecting our own work.

He used to say " Doing a good job is just one aspect of the work. Publishing it so that your manager and others can learn about is a must too". No need to boast or blow your trumpet. But you need to market and defend your work

It is a must in today's world to talk about your work and let others know your capabilities. One of the critical reasons is only people who are close to you will know about the details of how you work and what you are capable of .

Another common perception, when giving interviews is that my resume will do the talking. Well unless you are writing the resume as a person who is seeing 1000's of resume you will not elicit any response. Also when you are face to face with the interviewee, talking or defending your resume is a key, because you have an hour to tell all about yourself and selection. (I will talk about interviewing and interview techniques on another day).

So base line is

a) Market yourself and your work
b) Know the difference between Marketing your work and Blowing your trumpet too loud
c ) Respect the judgement of the person whom you are talking to

Friday, February 09, 2007

Passion - the key ingredient

Passion

This is one key ingredient which differentiates a Happiness and Success from all others. Passion drives an individual to work and achieve great heights. Be it sports, be it business, be it teaching or be it being a student. Every single task done with passion delivers a better end product and a great inner satisfaction.

As humans we waste a lot of negative energy either cribbing about how " Life Sucks" or " what a lousy situation we are in", and unfortunately we spend a lot of our time wallowing in such thoughts. Ever thought of the best things that we got and the frame of mind we were in when we achieved that. Ever thought what was it that caused us to work well or do good. From small things as proposing to your girlfriends on " valentine's day" to getting the best grades.

Passion to plays a role in the direction you give to your life, which path you want to journey thru.

As a Leader and a Manager in today's business world, this is one element that will clearly differentiate you from the other managers. Passion to work with your team and make them grow will give you a team that wants to work effectively with you.

As a Parent, it will give you a family that cherishes to be with you through your lifetime.

For the feeling of inner happiness, please check yourself regularly are you passionate about anything in life and are you doing those activities...

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Global Village - Are we ready

It is said that we are living in a global village, any act of ours has a global impact. In one way or the other we seem to get impacted or have an impact on lot more people than we expect.

But are we ready to join this global village,
  • Do we have the means to survive in this new world
  • Are we rooted deeply to our past so that we do not get pushed out into a unknown future
  • Do we have the means of communication to understand and appreciate the things around us

Mankind has been evolving from ages, ancient texts from across the various civilizations ( Greek, Romans, Egyptian and our Indian ) tell us that mankind was very progressive. But we living in today's world think that we are at a higher state of evolution than them.

Our ability to live with nature is a subject for another rambling.

Look at the world around us, there is so much in intermingling of races and cultures. Let us take India for example, the inflow of people moving across the states. It certainly has increased in the past few years, more and more cities are becoming cosmopolitan. There is access to the whole world from even the smallest of villages. More and more Indians are travelling abroad and settling down. Similarly we see a lot more people from across the world settle in India. But have be grown intellectually to assimilate the new surroundings. Have we grown to appreciate the small nicecites in each of these communities and enrich ourselves.

That is the thought to think.

As Woodrow Wilson said

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with a greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forger that errand"