THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Excellence

“Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details and excellence will come.” - Perry Paxton


TOPIC OF THE DAY

Six Keys to Being Excellent at anything

I've been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I'm far from the player I wish I were.

I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I've taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I've had a number of rapturous moments during which I've played like the player I long to be.


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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Strength

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Charles Darwin


TOPIC OF THE DAY

Successful Software Development: It's Not Rocket Science

Sometimes I wonder after years of software development whether the way we work has changed very much. Sure, technology has moved on at pace, but has our approach to running software development projects.

Users remain baffled by techno speak, developers prefer to invent rather than reuse and know what is best for you before you tell them what you want, while projects often miss deadlines and exceed budgets.

Just look at the Ministry of Defence who wasted nearly £30m on two IT projects alone. The first project, a communications system for the RAF, was abandoned because of problems integrating it with other systems and £21m was written off. The second, a pay system for the Navy, was closed when it became clear the project would cost three times the expected amount of £18.9m. £8.7m had already been spent, this too was written off.



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The Cure By Geeta Anand

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Quality

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives. ” - Tony Robbins

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Personal Time Management for Busy Managers

Personal Time Management is about controlling the use of your most valuable (and undervalued) resource. Consider these two questions: what would happen if you spent company money with as few safeguards as you spend company time, when was the last time you scheduled a review of your time allocation?

The absence of Personal Time Management is characterized by last minute rushes to meet dead-lines, meetings which are either double booked or achieve nothing, days which seem somehow to slip unproductively by, crises which loom unexpected from nowhere. This sort of environment leads to inordinate stress and degradation of performance: it must be stopped.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

The Cure By Geeta Anand

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Freedom

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. ” - David Viscott

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh (27 September 1907 – 23 March 1931) was an Indian freedom fighter, considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement. He is often referred to as Shaheed Bhagat Singh (the word shaheed means "martyr", in Arabic, and is used for Muslims usually but was conferred on him).
Born to a Jat Sikh family which had earlier been involved in revolutionary activities against the British Raj in India, Singh, as a teenager, had studied European revolutionary movements and was attracted to anarchism and communism. He became involved in numerous revolutionary organizations. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and became one of its leaders, converting it to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Singh gained support when he underwent a 64-day fast in jail, demanding equal rights for Indian and British political prisoners. He was hanged for shooting a police officer in response to the killing of veteran freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai. His legacy prompted youth in India to begin fighting for Indian independence and also increased the rise of socialism in India.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

Russia against Napoleon:the battle for Europe 1807 to 1814 / Dominic Lieven

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Life

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift.The meaning of life is to give it away.” - David Viscott

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Power Management

PMC is an engineering and technology company dedicated to preventing costly downtime for clients operating mission critical facilities. "Mission-Critical" is a broad categorization of ultra-high reliability and availability of electrical and
mechanical systems that must meet stringent operating criteria to maintain continuous functionality and eliminate costly unscheduled downtime. We provide a fully integrated continuum of services including planning, design, project management,preventive maintenance, mission critical technology solutions and training.
In recent years, industries including banking and financing, telecommunications, health care, broadcasting, transportation, pharmaceutical, and internet based services have become exceedingly dependent upon telecom and data systems that are
essential to the lifeblood of their companies. A computer or data center failure can be equated to a "Corporate Coronary".
This continued reliance on e-commerce has created a consistent, growing demand for expertise in developing and maintaining facilities specifically designed to meet the extraordinary levels of reliability that is imperative for operations running 24
hours a day, seven days a week forever.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Russia against Napoleon :

the battle for Europe 1807 to 1814 / Dominic Lieven

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Presentations

"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave." - Dale Carnegie

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Two Rules for a Successful Presentation

Most presentations go bad because the presenter didn't prepare well enough in two ways. In fact, so important are these two classic errors that I'm going to elevate them to The Two Rules for Preparing a Successful Presentation.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Success

“Success is not permanent. The same is also true of failure.” - Dell Crossword

TOPIC OF THE DAY

A Reliable Guide to Success in Marketing Management

Whether you are involved in business, doing business studies in college or even looking to start a business in future, articles on business matters are essential tools to get you on the right track.

Such articles are tailor-made to assist you to become a successful entrepreneur regardless of the size of your business venture. If you still are in school, they are effective research tools that give a vast array of information on all matters business. They also assist the person looking for useful information on how to start and manage a successful business enterprise.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Russia against Napoleon : the battle for Europe 1807 to 1814 / Dominic Lieven

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Work

“I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.” - Buddha

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Is Management for Me?: The Downside of Being a Manager

Are you wondering whether you want to be a manager, deciding if a management path is right for your career? Maybe the company has suggested a supervisory position for you. Maybe someone in your life is pushing you to "make more out of your life." Or are you trying to decide whether to get you Masters degree in your technical specialty or go for an MBA instead.

Whatever the reason you are considering a management career, this article will help you decide whether or not management is for you.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Honest Always Stand Alone by Somiah, C G

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Employee

“Encourage your people to be committed to a project rather than just be involved in it. ” - Richard Pratt

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Employee Grade Levels

Many companies find it useful to create employee grade levels. Creating employee grade levels assures equal compensation for the same work across different departments and divisions. If your company employs designers, sales people, programmers and accountants, for instance, how do you make sure they receive equal compensation and treatment when such different people have similar responsibility levels? One good solution is employee grade levels.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Honest Always Stand Alone by Somiah, C G

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Friendship

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ” - Abraham Lincoln

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Corporate Governance and the Home Bias

This paper shows that there is a close relation between corporate governance and the portfolios held by investors. Most firms in countries with poor investor protection are controlled by large shareholders, so that only a fraction of the shares issued by firms in these countries can be freely traded and held by portfolio investors. We show that the prevalence of closely-held firms in most countries helps explain why these countries exhibit a home bias in share holdings and why U.S. investors underweight foreign countries in their portfolios. We construct an estimate of the world portfolio of shares available to investors who are not controlling shareholders (the world float portfolio). The world float portfolio differs sharply from the world market portfolio. In regression explaining the portfolio weights of U.S. investors, the world float portfolio has a positive significant coefficient but the world market portfolio has no additional explanatory power. This result holds when we control for country characteristics. An analysis of foreign investor holdings at the firm level for Sweden confirms the importance of the float portfolio as a determinant of these holdings.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Honest Always Stand Alone by Somiah. C. G.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Skill

“Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level. ” - Peter Drucker

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Presentation Skills for Emergent Managers

Management is the art of getting things done. A Presentation is a fast and potentially effective method of getting things done through other people. In managing any project, presentations are used as a formal method for bringing people together to plan, monitor and review its progress.
But let us look at this another way: what can a presentation do for you?
Firstly; it puts you on display. Your staff need to see evidence of decisive planning and leadership so that they are confident in your position as their manager. They need to be motivated and inspired to undertaking the tasks which you are presenting. Project leaders from other sections need to be persuaded of the merits of your project and to provide any necessary support. Senior management should be impressed by your skill and ability so that they provide the resources so that you and your team can get the job done.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Book

“Every burned book enlightens the world.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system model embeds modules like Business-to-Business (B2B) CRM, Marketing

Automation, Sales Force Automation, Customer Service and Support, Partner Management, Contract Management and Creation,

Project and Team Management, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) CRM, Internet Sales, E-Mail Response Management, B2C Analytics and

Business Intelligence, ther CRM-Related Application Areas, E-mail marketing, Customer reference, Commission management, Field

service, Relationship capital management, Survey software, Sales proposal software, Product and price configuration, Web

conferencing, Mobile computing, Channel management, Retail solutions, Technical Functionality and Support, Business

Functionality, Technical Functionality, and Ongoing CRM Solution Support.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Thank You, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Mistakes

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." - Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Miracle of Making Mistakes

Make no mistake: The fear of making mistakes is deeply ingrained in our psyche.

All through school, a mistake indicates the prospect of lower grades. Good students don't make mistakes. At home, mistakes lead to admonishments. Good children follow the rules. At work, mistakes have serious repercussions. Good workers get it right the first time.

But, in those very schools and organizations where we are marked down for making mistakes, we also learn

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Interview

“Never wear a backward baseball cap to an interview unless applying for the job of umpire.” - Dan Zevin

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Conduct an Internal Interview

Organizations spend the majority of their hiring resources on finding and screening external candidates. But when you need to fill a position, the most cost-effective and practical thing you can do is hire someone from within. In fact, most hiring in companies is done internally. Still, the internal interview is often thought of as something to check off on a hiring to-do list rather than a source of real information. If you already know the person, what else is there to learn, right? Wrong. When conducted well, internal interviews can provide valuable new insight into a known candidate.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Prevent

"At the end of the day, we're just trying to prevent each other from going mad." - Will Champion

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Prevent Hiring Disasters

Hiring someone can be a time-consuming and nerve-wracking task. In an ideal situation, you find the perfect person for the position — someone who hits the ground running, increases your unit's performance, and eases your workload. In the worst-case scenario, your seemingly perfect hire turns out to be far from it and you spend months dealing with the aftermath, including finding a replacement. Either way, it can feel like a referendum on your judgment. So how can you be sure your experience is more like the former than the latter? If you outline and adhere to a disciplined process, you can greatly improve your chances.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

The Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Ability

"Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind." - Francis Scott Fitzgerald

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Sir M. Visvesvarayya

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, KCIE (other spellings include Visvesvaraya, Visweswaraiah, Vishweshwariah; (15 September 1860 - 14 April 1962) was an eminent Indian engineer and statesman. He is a recipient of the Indian republic's highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1955. He was also knighted by the British for his myriad contributions to the public good. Every year, 15th September is celebrated as the Engineer's Day in India in his memory and is a public holiday in some places, especially his birth state Karnataka.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

The Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Experience

“Experience is the teacher of all things.” - Julius Caesar

TOPIC OF THE DAY

What is Equity Valuation?

Determining the total value of a company involves more than reviewing assets and revenue figures. An equity valuation takes several financial indicators into account; these include both tangible and intangible assets, and provide prospective investors, creditors or shareholders with an accurate perspective of the true value of a company at any given time.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIC IT AND PROCESS PLANNING by Bennet P Lientz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Change

“Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.” - Anonymous

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Drive Change the IDEO Way

Earlier this week I enjoyed listening to Bruce MacGregor, Managing Partner of design giant IDEO, at the Sustainable Brands Conference in Monterey, CA.

His talk was focused on how you drive change. He name-checked Nudge, Predictably Irrational, and other recent, important books on changing behavior. Some fun examples included this crowd favorite: Airports that etched a little fly into urinals for men to aim at saw an 80% reduction in, well, pee on the floor.

MacGregor demonstrated how hard change really is with one shocking statistic: Only 10% of people facing a life-threatening situation — as in the doctor says change your behavior or you die — make the changes necessary.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

The Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Faith

“Faith is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see.” - William Newton Clarke

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Project Management

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and
objectives. It is sometimes conflated with program management, however technically a
program is actually a higher level construct: a group of related and somehow interdependent projects. A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Making Sense of the Dollar: Exposing Dangerous Myths about Trade and Foreign Exchange ByMarc Chandler

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Money

“You can be young without money but you can't be old without it.” - Tennessee Williams

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Become Rich

If you haven’t already made millions of dollars but want to, there are only 4 ways you can do so:

1. Inheritance – this is the easiest way to make money, but also one that usually isn’t in your control. If your parents or someone in your family doesn’t have tons of money, you probably will not be inheriting it.
2. Stunning physical attributes – if you are good looking or athletic you can usually make a good living through modeling or sports. If you are not athletic there isn’t much you can do to change that, but as for the modeling part you can always get plastic surgery if you aren’t attractive.
3. Knowledge – if you have knowledge that others don’t have it could be worth a lot of money. The thing with becoming wealthy off of knowledge is that in most cases it can’t be something others can easily find out. People who become rich through knowledge are usually in the scientific field or have a high IQ.
4. Willingness – the last way you can become a millionaire is by doing things that others won’t do. For example, if you are willing to work 12 hour days instead of 8 or do things that are out of most people’s comfort zone, you have a shot at becoming rich. Becoming rich through willingness means that you have to learn to go that extra mile.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

Making Sense of the Dollar: Exposing Dangerous Myths about Trade and Foreign Exchange ByMarc Chandler

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Strategy

“Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy. ” - Rudy Giuliani

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Asha Bhosle

Asha Bhosle (born September 8, 1933) is an Indian singer. She is one of the best-known and most highly regarded Hindi playback singers in India, although she has a much wider repertoire.Her career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over 1000 Bollywood movies, and among other activities she has recorded many private albums and has participated in numerous concerts in India and abroad.Bhosle is the sister of playback singer Lata Mangeshkar.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Leading Strategy Execution / Suresh MISTRY, Christine ANTUNES,

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Valuation

“Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves” - Andrew Carnegie

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Stock Valuation

In financial markets, stock valuation is the method of calculating theoretical values of companies and their stocks. The main use of these methods is to predict future market prices, or more generally potential market prices, and thus to profit from price movement – stocks that are judged undervalued (with respect to their theoretical value) are bought, while stocks that are judged overvalued are sold, in the expectation that undervalued stocks will, on the whole, rise in value, while overvalued stocks will, on the whole, fall.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

The Deceiver / Frederick Forsyth

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Money

“If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.” - Henry Ford

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Indian Economy Overview

According to the estimates by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the Indian economy has registered a growth of 7.4 per cent in 2009-10, with 8.6 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in its fourth quarter. The growth is driven by robust performance of the manufacturing sector on the back of government and consumer spending. GDP growth rate of 7.4 per cent in 2009-10 has exceeded the government forecast of 7.2 per cent for the full year. According to government data, the manufacturing sector witnessed a growth of 16.3 per cent in January-March 2010, from a year earlier.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

How India Earns, Spends and Saves: Unmasking the Real India by Rajesh Shukla

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Teacher

“ The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes,
and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.” - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Teachers' day

In India 5th September is celebrated as Teachers' day as a mark of tribute to the contribution made by teachers to the society. 5th September is the birthday of a great teacher Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, who was a staunch believer of education, and was the well-known diplomat, scholar, president of India and above all a teacher.

When Dr. Radhakrishnan became the President of India in 1962,he was approached by some of his students and friends and requested him to allow them to celebrate 5th September, his "birthday". In reply, Dr.Radhakrishnan said, "instead of celebrating my birthday separately, it would be my proud privilege if September 5 is observed as Teachers' day". The request showed Dr.Radhakrishnan's love for the teaching profession. From then onwards, the day has been observed as Teachers' Day in India

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LATEST ARRIVALS

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini / David Friedma

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Performance

“Practice as if you are the worst, perform as if you are the best. ” - Anonymous

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Ditch Performance Reviews? How About Learn to do Them Well?

Few activities in a workplace polarize like performance reviews. Some see them as subjective and ungrounded, one-sided and boss-dominated and something we should do away with entirely, an opinion put forth most recently in a Wall Street Journal article. Others find them an invaluable tool to develop employees and move the company forward.

Our view? Yes, performance reviews can be dysfunctional, but they need not be. Research has suggested that in two-thirds of cases, performance feedback elicits improved performance. Not only can reviews help employees recognize their strengths and developmental needs, but, if done well, can boost their motivation. Should we abandon performance reviews? Absolutely not. Should we learn how to do them well? Absolutely.

Today's topic was adapted from Ditch Performance Reviews? How About Learn to do Them Well?

LATEST ARRIVALS

Hidden order : the economics of everyday life / David Friedman

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Risk management

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. ” - Albert Einstein

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Benefits of Thinking the Unthinkable

My colleague Gökçe Sargut and I are doing some work on how executives can improve the way their organizations operate under conditions of complexity. As we did the background research, I was fascinated by counterintuitive thinking from Aaron Wildavsky, a well-known social scientist. He argued that when facing risks, organizations have two basic possible responses. Systems can be designed to stave off risks, or they can be designed to be resilient, so that when terrible things happen the system can respond. Most organizations are heavily biased toward risk prevention: we create systems so risk-averse that we truncate learning, sometimes even increasing the very risks we're trying to avoid.

Today's topic was adapted from The Benefits of Thinking the Unthinkable

LATEST ARRIVALS

The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service by Donna Cutting

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Conversation

“Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know”
- Andre Maurois

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Do You Have Their Backs? Or Just Your Own?

One of the bosses I single out for praise in my new book is Intel's Patricia (Pat) McDonald, manager of a fabrication facility that the company, responding to a sharp decrease in sales, decided to shutter in 2009. Faced with the unenviable task of putting 1,000 people out of work, she made it her mission to place as many of them as possible in new jobs, either in other Intel facilities on the same, vast Hillsboro, Oregon campus or in other local firms. I'll always remember the praise I heard from one of her engineers, Sumit Guha. He said that every employee who worked with Pat during that tough time wouldn't hesitate to do so again, because "they know she's got their backs."

Today's topic was adapted from Do You Have Their Backs? Or Just Your Own?

LATEST ARRIVALS

India Way: How India's Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management by Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra V. Singh, Michael Useem