I talk a whole lot. I always feel like sharing all my thoughts- whether there is someone willing to listen or not. I wouldn’t call myself a writer (I probably didn’t even use the previous dash correctly). But being successful at sharing ideas is tough. Writing is hard of course, but that is not what I am talking about. It is hard because in recent times we have developed an expectation for writers to be “experts” in the topics they write about. What does that mean anyway?
While I was in the process of applying to graduate school, I had the opportunity to talk to a UCLA Business School faculty, Eduardo Schwartz, whose some of his main work was in something called "real options".
A real call option, like the name implies, is the right but not the obligation to make a certain decision in real life. For example, a real option could be whether to attend or not to Law School. But here is the conundrum: what is the the monetary cost in going to Law School? Of course there are a couple numbers than can be derived quickly, such as the actual tuition cost, the additional living expenses, the financial loss due to no or little work for the duration of the studies, etc.
Last night I had the pleasure to go to a fantastic ‘unofficial’ TED conference organized in San Francisco. For those who don’t know what TED is, let me save myself some typing and quote Wikipedia:
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A lot of people have written already about the awesomeness of SXSW – thought I’d share a list of links of the events at which I attended. If anyone is interested in hearing more about this amazing event, drop me an email.
Jeff went to college knowing he was following his passion of studying Electrical Engineering like his dad. However, in this four year quest, Jeff took courses in completely unrelated fields and completed a minor in mathematics. Jeff also talks about choosing the right job after college.
In this interview Dima Tokar talks about his experience at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dima is currently pursuing a double major in microbiology and finance, all that while working full time as a resident assistant and running his own business. Listen to his advice about school, career, entrepreneurship, and more.
This is the second time I attempt to write a post about this topic. Initially, I was focusing too much on how different cultures see failure. But realizing my lack of knowledge on the topic, I decided to abstain—I would not like to fall into false stereotypes or offend anybody. However, I am really interested in how different cultures perceive failure—particularly how this perception differs between western and eastern cultures. So if anybody would like to share some personal stories related to the topic, I would be very happy.
Now to the point.
Note: For some reason, starting essays or blog posts with sentences such as “this is indeed an interesting topic” is considered amateurish. However, I like doing it because it puts me in a conversational mindset, and I rather communicate to others (regardless of being through voice, video, or text) in a casual manner. In this post, I am just going to start with this long unnecessary paragraph in order to achieve the same result. I accept suggestions on other ways to be explicitly informal.
At a Business Today International Conference, I had the pleasure to hear many distinguished keynote speakers. I honestly can’t remember any of the speeches, but there was one that I always think about and quote to other people. The speaker was the CEO of a middle-man-fuel-trading type company—I don’t recall his name. He stood up in the podium and said something like the following:
you guys are young, you have a lot of time and your minds have not yet been polluted by society. You guys should spent much of this time figuring out what your world views are: Do you believe in God? Why? Would you get an abortion? Why? Do you feel you owe to your country? Your family? Why? Don’t just follow a belief just because the people around you follow it. Allow yourself the opportunity to explore ideas and find which world views best match you—a unique individual […]
Let’s first start by defining the concept of ‘idea’. Yes, I know this is an amateur way of starting a blog post. But today I am not going to quote Wikipedia or a dictionary definition. Today, I am going to make the definition up (feel free to refute it in the comments). To me, an idea is a type of epiphany that occurs while one is struck with a problem. This epiphany presents a solution to such problem and from the beholder’s perspective, it is very clear that this is the perfect solution.
Powerful ideas have an intuitive name and can be explained to most people in 60 seconds. But contrary to popular belief, I think that a good idea will only be fully appreciated by the epiphaneer. As a matter of fact, I don’t think ideas are worth anything without people with the knowledge, the commitment, and the perseverance to make them happen—this is my assumption. From this, we can derive the following question: If ideas are worthless, then why should anybody see any value in them?
Corporate America prides itself in being a cut throat meritocracy. In this system, subordinates are to be rewarded based on the quantity and quality of their work. Any capitalist at heart would agree that this compensation model is indeed the most effective way to maximize output, push efficiency, and persuade innovation.
However, in practice Corporations are rarely able to achieve this modus operandi. The problem: it is very hard to track the amount and worth of work produced by an employee. The end result is that most companies end up following a more conservative reward system influenced by factors such as the amount of time an employee has been with the company, rapport with manager, or other forms of visibility such as the completion of an online MBA.
