The idea trigger

I used to attend department seminars on topics when I joined grad school all pertaining to my major industrial engineering. This is how the process goes, you understand what the speaker is going to speak on for the first couple of slides( which accounts for less than the first five minutes) and then for the next hour nothing makes sense.
Turns out it is still of utmost important to attend these seminars. The reason( my favorite professor and a friend explained) is pretty simple: they give you ideas. Research ideas for a new topic. It was eye opening to find out that my professor(with a brilliant intellect) also didn't understand most of the lectures.
Listening to the essence of what people are doing, might make you think of other ways to do it, or make you think about something unrelated.
Ideas are generated when we engage into either a) hardcore thinking b)when are minds are opened by someone else's creativity into unleashing the thought process, and activities which engage you to do that even for sometime are invaluable.

Building the Kiva tribe

I have this vision of building a huge Kiva tribe on the A&M campus. A tribe according to Seth: is taking finding something worth changing and then assembling tribes to do it. I want to create a Kiva movement. And I have to find those connectors who want to participate in social change.
A few things I have learned down the way while implementing this idea:

1. Marketing is so more important that one would think and so is the art of persuasive communication.
2. Learning to work in groups is an invaluable skill.
3. Leading a group of people is challenging. Delegating the right tasks and eliciting from people more than what they think they can do.

One of the best lines from Seth " You don't need to have charisma to be a leader.Being a leader gives you charisma"

A quote and a great video

Art is not the antithesis of science. An education system which asks you to choose between the two is totally flawed. I fully understood this concept in graduate school that
a)science is creative
b) science is intuitive
c) if you are in the sciences then an understanding of art makes you all the more better at science and in no ways diverts you from it.

An amazing video(brought to my notice by Garr Reynold's) which talks about the sciences and arts.



And here is a brilliant quote from the video:
"If you don't care where you want to get to, it doesn't matter which way you go."
-Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland

What do we take away from a course?

How do we judge whether a course we have taken is of value ,in a field like engineering, where we what I learn today changes tomorrow( I am not talking about the basic principles but advanced applications). These are the metrics against which I decide whether a particular course is successful:
1. Has this course pushed my mental limits?
2. Has this course added a new dimension to my thought process?
3. If I knew I would never use what is taught in the course( which is almost always the case),would I still take it?

3 Yes's and the course is definitely worth it.

Value of free work

Basic assumption: the greater the salary, the better the work.
This is flawed.
For example a small company will pay its receptionist much less than a large company, but the type of the work is the same. You have to answer the phone.
A company pays more because it has the ability to, a high paying job speaks about the company, never the job.
So the newer a person is in his career/in college , one should never think about the pay. It doesn't make a difference. Think about what you will end up gaining.
Eg: Doing research for free under a prof/ flipping burgers in Burger King. One does not pay the other pays, but the one that doesn't counts( unless you want to become a chef).
A smart person ultimately ends up being paid well unless he himself doesn't want a high paying job.
Thinking long term and ahead of short monetary gains always makes sense.

The world catches up

The world catches up rapidly with the innovator.
Take Starbucks, for instance. It introduces coffee, triggers the ubiquitous coffee drinking culture in US and then the world . Now there are hundreds of coffee shops everywhere. From Mc Donald's to the exclusive coffee shops it's all over the place.
I guess it is really tough to be in Starbucks shoes now. You did start it, but now you have widespread competition, and it takes much more effort to sustain the the ingenuity. No one remembers you started it but it takes a hell lot to keep growing and sill be the leader. Still maintain the edge.
Google wasn't the first search engine in the world. But now it's the only one we think of.
Competition makes sustenance tough. Innovation is never enough. To lead continually, you have to have much more than that. You have to be the best all the time.
Like Starbucks, like Google.

Innovation within your reach

Innovation comes as huge as your imagination. Literally, which translates meaning there is no cap on how much a person can innovate.
I recently saw a cartoon strip with no characters, it blew me away. Just boxes. Wish I could post a link, but forgot the source.
So that takes us to what we produce is what we can visualize, but it takes effort to convert the visualization.
Redefining what is done. Questioning basic assumptions.
Start innovating. All you need is an open mind.

Book review: How to be like Walt by Pat Wiliams, Jim Denney

Think of Disney and we immediately associate it with fun, adventure and larger than life quality.
I( and maybe everyone) have grown up watching the Walt Disney classics be it Cinderella, Mary Poppins, Snow White etc. The book is about the man behind it all: animation, Disney land : Walt Disney.
Not only is this book about the life of this legendary genius but also great perspective on what all of us can learn from him.
Firstly: After reading this book, Walt Disney has become one of the most inspirational people I have read about.
Surprisingly Walt Disney was a self educated man." Successful people are those who have learned how to learn. Whether college educated or self educated, successful people depend on themselves, not others for their knowledge, skills or wisdom. People who are committed to life long learning have everything they need to shape their destinies."
Walt Disney died early of lung cancer. Williams sketches a real biography, showing Walt as as a real person, bringing out the possible flaws and the genius in him. It is extraordinary how he lived his life with a sense of urgency, adventure, with utmost focus and unlimited creativity which requires tremendous courage, the 'plussing' persistence, the triumph over so many failures and the vision.Phew that's a lot!
As Walt says he started with a mouse. And he went onto achieve an extraordinary amount in one lifetime.
He teaches you to think beyond your lifetime if you want to achieve something worthwhile.
" If you live your life right, things happen the way they are supposed to."
Some people live on after they die. It rings so true for Walt.