This is a street in Old San Juan.
The light was great for pictures that day. Photo taken with my iPhone.
But the coolest thing was the visit I placed Ben & Jerry´s after that ;-)
By the way, the owner of that B&J´s in Old San Juan is Michelle Campi, yep, that Michelle Campi.
In short: Shel Israel is a renowned blogger, book writer and consultant, advising companies on how to adopt social media and ¨embrace the conversation¨, even when it´s hostile to you . Loren Feldman is a smart provocateur.
The story by Mike Arrington is here.
Bottom line: When faced with harsh criticism from Feldman, Israel did exactly the opposite he proclaims and makes a living out of.
That doesn´t make him a bad person. The hardest thing to do in life is to ALIGN your actions with your beliefs/predicaments, or ¨live your personal brand¨ if you want to put it that way. The problem is that, in that very hardest moment, you have to kill your ego. That´s the lesson we learn day in, day out.
No matter how many times we hear it, we agree on ¨the what¨. But ¨how?
Facebook now has 64 million registered users. That means 1 out of 100 people on Earth are registered.
Think about it...
With so many options available to us in every aspect of life, it is critical now more than ever to align your daily actions with your long term goals. And it is now easier than ever to find people with interests and beliefs aligned with yours.
One click away, not six degrees anymore.
Back by popular demand:
[Click here for the first episode of ¨Blogging is like sex¨. Thanks.]
8. Don´t ever think that post you wrote drunk at 5 AM impressed anyone...
9. Thou shall not covet your neighbor´s blog.
10. ¨I´ve seen his blog. Nothing to be impressed about...¨
11. They say you should blog to please yourself first.
12. Yes, it´s a myth: No one can post 10 times a day.
13. Having a blog does not mean you´re going to post everyday.
Another sunset...the third of the series.
The first one I took in Aruba.
The second one in Miami.
This one´s here in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
There´s always something special with sunsets.
Web 2.0 = human dynamics 101.
That's my opinion. These web 2.0 tools we have today are just enablers for us to interact, in the same way we do offline, on a larger scale and faster pace.
One unexpected feature of these tools is that they drive control freaks crazy. Why? Cause you cannot control the interactions that take place when you use them. Hence, the need for authenticity and transparency, of really focusing on the other side of the interaction, rather than your own.
Authenticity and transparency nurture trust. The problem with not understanding these tools, is that you will never align your behaviors online with those that a connected, hyperlinked world values. At the core, these are non other than, I think, our true nature.
Blogging is like Sex.
...is that humans are not resources.
When utilizing a resource, such as fuel, it gets used, burns out and all remainings are waste. It doesn´t benefit from the interaction in any way. Not a good analogy for humans, although all too familiar sometimes.
Humans want realization. The problem with treating humans as resources is that it might be ALIGNED with a company´s needs for something to use and burn out, but certainly not with humans´ wants.
I´ve been thinking about this for weeks. Today I read Seth Godin´s point of view: why not a VP of Talent.
Today someone gave us a presentation on his product. Things I remember in no particular order:
1. Seven bullet points in a single slide, all appearing at the same time...as an introduction.
2. Misspellings in several pages.
3. ¨Yes, I´ll answer that but first let me show you this other feature because if not we´ll be here ´til tomorrow morning¨. (yes, he did say that).
4. He spoke for 20 minutes more than we had agreed.
The message I got was:
¨I´m here to tell you about my product. I know you have problems, and I don´t know them yet. If we have time at the end, we´ll discuss your situation; but first, let me tell you all about the features of my product and the things it can do. I hope this will impress you enough to ask me to come again, and then prepare a proposal.¨You have an option: try to sell features, or offer to solve problems (that those features happen to solve). The problem with the first approach is that people can tell it´s not ALIGNED with their needs.
2,000 visits and counting! Thanks for stopping by, seriously. Attention is a gift, so I appreciate your reading this.
Be gud. Live laif. ;-)
3pm, exhausting day @ work, your mind starts spinning...You come up with a suspiciously funny joke:
¨How do they mute a phone in [insert favorite place here]?¨
Will you marry your idea of me!????
Update: Craig Harper says it better. Read his post the morning after posting mine. Talk about coincidence. Worth reading ;-)
So it turns out that trying to get something from someone is really not a selfish act. At least not if you want to be successful.
Dale Carnegie wrote ¨How to win friends and influence people¨. A central idea to the book is that there is only one way to make someone do something; and that is by making that person WANT to do it.
So the next question is: how to MAKE someone WANT to do something?
Enter Charles Green, author of ¨The Trusted Advisor¨ blog. ¨In order to get someone to buy from you something she needs, first you need to understand what it is that she wants (in life).¨
Is what you´re asking for ALIGNED with the other person´s values and desires?
Por aquello de que me encantan las analogías...
Esta imagen me pareció la analogía perfecta para mi estado de ánimo cuando la tomé. Llevaba así un par de meses: cuesta arriba, sabiendo que iba a algún lado pero sin entender muy bien dónde ni si quería.
Desde esta semana es más algo como así:
Amplitud, serenidad, empezando a percibir la luz que se asoma.
Qué foto define tu estado de ánimo?
This makes me wonder what the future of education as we understand it will be like:
www.freebase.com Via techcrunch: "Freebase is a massive database. The purpose of the database is to centralize as much data as possible, and allow participants to freely add and access data - developers can extract information from Freebase via a set of APIs and add it to their web applications. It also builds relationships between highly structured pieces of data, something that can’t easily be done with distributed data controlled by different entities. "
Pensamiento cínico del día:
“Lo de que el cambio frecuente de trabajo se ve mal en el curriculum se lo han inventao las empresas mediocres, hombre! Para que no se les vaya la peña en cuanto descubren lo mediocres que son.”
Ja!
Firmado: yo.
Tenía curiosidad por saber cuánto cuesta un seguro médico individual, así que hoy llamé al número del primer seguro que vi.
Como de costumbre, una máquina te recibe. La opción pre-programada para atender llamadas de potenciales clientes nuevos se llama (y lo digo porque entenderlo no fue inmediato): ¨Ventas Nuevas¨. Esto es una sutileza, pero demuestra en quién estaba pensando el que programó el cuadro telefónico. Peor aún, hace pensar que la programación la aprobó cualquier ¨comité¨ formado ad hoc a tal efecto.¨No me importa quién llame, para NOSOTROS esto es una venta nueva.¨ o ¨Hola, me estoy dirigiendo a tí en mi idioma...y quiero que me compres.¨
El problema con declararse ¨orientado al cliente¨ es que hay que alinear cada operación del día a día con ello. Y programar los sistemas de ATENCIÓN AL CLIENTE basados en tecnicismos internos, no lo está.
PD. Nunca cogieron el teléfono. Esa es otra...
Words of wisdom for the day, by Seth Godin: “More is easy to sell. Less almost never is”.
Yesterday I was thinking about the “positive-action oriented” rather than “negative-action deterrent” ways of saying things or giving feedback. “Don’t do this” versus “do more of (the opposite)” .
If we are to achieve our goals, and we want to align everyday actions with the long-term vision, I suggest we approach things from a standpoint of DOING rather than NOT DOING. The latter leads to inaction, that leads to fear of failure. And fear of failure is Evolution's bottleneck.
What do we do when a process doesn’t work in a Company?
We re-engineer it. After all, “process re-engineering” is to problems what aspirin is to headache: let’s shift some responsibilities, move some people around, arrange more meetings. And then, management’s selling line: “We are sure that OUR PEOPLE will understand this and execute accordingly”.
What have we done? We (think we have) have aligned “what we (must) do” (must is key here) with what we want to achieve.
The problem is that we seldom pay attention to the HOW and the WHY.
How people should execute processes is more important than the processes themselves, because it gives you the ability to improve them naturally. The correct HOW is achieved when people understand WHY. In other words, to achieve your long-term objectives, you need to make sure people understand why they do what they do everyday and how their activities contribute to achieving those goals. Because not always people understand WHY they must do what they are doing.
In your company, what percentage of people would you say can connect what they do everyday to the business strategies?
This from the website www.plantingpeace.org
Did You Know...
Makes you think...30,000 people die everyday from starvation
150 million street children world wide
842 million people across the world are hungry
798 million people in the developing world are undernourished
Half the world -- nearly three billion people -- live on less than 2 dollars a day.The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.
To satisfy all the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion, hardly as much as the people of the United States and the European Union spend each year on perfume.
Urging humans to make a conscious personal effort in there daily life’s to bring betterment to the planet so every creature grandchildren's grandchildren can simply live.He´s built orphanages and homes for kids and adults in Ecuador, Haiti and Guatemala; more projects underway.
Así se te queda el cuerpo antes de entrar a la cafetería de mi oficina. No porque el cartelito está al revés (lo que pasa es que no consigo darle la vuelta), sino por lo del OJO.
El cartel cumple uno de los dos objetivos por los que está ahí: captar la atención. El segundo (que la gente haga caso) no se cumple, por culpa del primero.
Por qué? Si has tenido que poner ese cartel en la puerta, cuando hace meses que las instrucciones están visibles en otros sitios es porque quieres advertir claramente que estás pendiente de ello. Te estás dirigiendo a los que no te hacen caso, simplemente estás gritando más alto.
Interpretación del cliente que no ¨roba¨ (que es la inmensa mayoría): les importa más reducir una ¨pérdida¨ de, digamos, 25 centavos por 100 personas que lo hagan al día (que lo van a seguir haciendo, las instrucciones ya estaban), a asegurarse de que, por ejemplo, la cajera te hable (no digo ya sonría) para que tu experiencia en el lugar sea buena y vuelvas mañana.
Si tu estrategia a largo plazo es alta satisfacción de clientes, deberías asegurar que la interacción de estos en el día a día está alineada con ello. Y un mensaje de bienvenida (no una advertencia) ayuda. Mucho.
¨Traducción¨:
* Combo = menú
* Refill = relleno
Ah, yo bebo agua, no Coca-Cola ;-)
Ok, I´m back. ¨Stop and smell the flowers¨ kind of lapsus.
Alguien muy sabio me dice por ahí que al blog le hace falta vidilla en español, así que como estoy de acuerdo...bienvenidos al primer blog bilingüe que conozco ;-)
Funny how in a matter of weeks you reconnect with two classmates you haven´t seen in ages (one since 8th grade). How? LinkedIn and Facebook, of course.
So, my dear old friend Irene sees the cartoons and she asked me if I could draw one with this theme in mind: people who don´t get the ¨coaching¨ thing, and believe that a coach, mentor...is there like a parent to a little kid, mainly to solve your problems, not helping you find the answers, whichever those may be.
Well, here it goes, Irene. And thank you, cause it got me thinking that we all are a little bit that person sometimes. I´m myself currently sensing that little boy inside asking for help and solutions more often than not. Luckily the older brother takes over just in time with a serenading ¨hey, just relax...keep looking that way. And enjoy the journey¨.
Hmmm....maybe the journey is the solution.
Maybe God Himself?
http://tinyurl.com/2czz93
Craaazy crazy world...Have a good one.
My perception of what it must have been to go through a ¨kidnap.tionship¨. Descriptions out there? Anyone?
We all wish other people, especially our loved ones, behaved in a way they don´t, or achieved things we deem easy for them (because they are easy for us).
I think one of the hardest things in life is being able to let go of this, just letting people BE. It all comes down to empathy, being able to walk a mile on the other person´s shoes and understand how hard that thing can be under their circumstances. The other hard thing to do then, is help them create the circumstances that will allow them to achieve it, IF they want to.
Jose Antonio Marina says that intelligent behavior is characterized by the creation of possibilities.
That´s why managers who inspire get a lot more done in the long run than those who use a command-and-control approach.
And speaking of true love and affection, today is my parents´ 32nd anniversary.
Felicidades papá y mamá!!
Greetings from El Puerto de Santa María, the town where I grew up, located in the province of Cádiz, Spain. Life is getting interesting and I needed two weeks to reflect on all things work.(Michele calls these getaways ¨hiatus¨, which I find very representative).
Nothing like sunset contemplation to clear your head. This one´s a view of the town of Rota, next to El Puerto, with the Naval Base in between both cities (those are navy ships).
Living abroad as I do, it´s good (important) getting to see your friends at least once a year. If you ever need an agency to help you with your corporate identity, packaging and a non-traditional but effective marketing campaign, check these guys out. They´re doing great things lately. It was founded by my friend Kisko, who I find to be a great innovator in this field.
Dear blog,
I haven't forgotten you. It's just that I still don't have internet connection in my new apartment...and probably won't for a while.
In the meantime I cheat on you with your younger sister nanoblogging, by updating my twitter page several times a day. Soon I will be bringing you both together.
While I'm away, please don't forget to greet the fellow "terricoleans" who pass by and offer them a thought or two, either written or drawn.
With no further instructions, I leave you til next time. Send my kind regards to your Google host server.
Long time...writing from my blackberry tonight: first mobile blogging experience. Getting used to the pearl's keyboard. Writing in telegraph mode cause my left finger is yelling at me...and cause I'm doing Twitter lately. That's the "nu thang, y'all know?"
Oh, and milestone weekend cause I moved to a "new" (long story) apartment. Lessons learned?
1. Mom & Dad's infinite generosity towards their children
2. Murphy's law applies to moving too
3. I avoided much of it by remaining calm and positive (law of attraction)
4.general contractors are to construction what copyright lawyers are to music.
Gud nait
Me likey di blog...
The word of wisdom today comes from Seth Godin on this post: if you have anything you´d like to say, tell the world, get it out of your system or simply type, do it. Just once, and see the effect it has on you.
Like Hugh MacLeod likes to remember that Clay Shirky says:
"So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this -- the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast."
Here´s another one for the ¨it´s not you, it´s me¨ style of gracefully not getting it... hah!
Turns out it´s not that clear whether an increase in CO2 levels drives an increase in the Earth´s temperature or it´s the other way around.
I can´t find the tiny little post, but if you do, please send it to me. Thanks!
PD. I promise I´ll get better at the drawings, hah!
I guess some days it´s harder to connect the dots than others. You lose perspective, or hope, or simply patience...That´s ok, as long as you find posts like this one, by Nick Smith (again).
From life2pointO:
The alternative to planning and organising is to be open to receive. Not in a passive 'do nothing' type of way, but as an active surrender to our inner knowing... and moment to moment engagement with our experience of life as it unfolds before us.
We think that without our conscious control our lives would be chaos. Not so, in truth they would reflect only Love and harmony.
Have you ever spent 17 straight hours talking about innovation and human dynamics? I just did. Hope I can wake up tomorrow... ;-P
Laif is gud.
Back from the Dominican Republic. Two words: Alignment (my favorite word lately) and Balance. That´s how you can sum up the benefits of having a Project Portfolio Management (PPM) methodology in your company. That´s what I told the potential client (the purpose of the trip was to tell the success story of implementing a PPM methodology in our Company).
Something I realized during my visit: these people GET IT. I´m talking about the joy of living and taking it easy. Granted they´re a developing country and you begin to see ¨first world-like activity¨ in the city (rush hour, horns, rising prices, etc). But when you interact with them you still get the paused and HONEST ¨Hello, how are you?¨ that all of us fake in the other places I´ve lived in. It makes you smile back to them and CONNECT.
I wonder if it´s because they still have alignment and balance in their lives...
This is a view of the beautiful garden and pool in the Hotel El Embajador.
I just found out Today that I fly to Santo Domingo, D.R. tomorrow at noon. Unexpected, but it´s always a good time to fly away and give presentations on alignment.
No blogging ´til Saturday. I hope to take some cool pictures to post.
Have a great weekend.
Yes, it´s THE question.
What is Innovation? Lately it seems like the ¨mojo¨ word, but what does your Company understand by innovation?:
a) Keyword in any strategic plan that needs immediate attention in order to be executed ¨as usual¨;
b) ¨Naipes joker¨ word used as an excuse to explore ¨new ways of doing things¨ (read: to postpone important decisions that rock the boat...);
c) Must-have word in the cover of cool business magazines;
I think innovation is a MINDSET. It´s realizing that:
1. We are not in control. Anyone who pretends to be is set for a good deal of frustration.
2. Nothing that got us here is guaranteed to take us there.
3. Yes, we will fail. And get up. And fail. And get up.....
4. It´s a whole new game... in every industry.
5. Connection is what matters. It´s what brings success. Oh, but don´t search for it; rather, open yourself to it. Otherwise it won´t happen.
And aligning everyday actions and decisions accordingly. That is: reconsidering everything, embracing the chaos, preparing to sail the boat of disruption.
Everything else is...well, tonight´s word: guanno . vation.
What is Innovation for you?
Wouldn´t it be cool to have such a word? It rhymes with ¨cruelty¨...I guess because it´s cruel not to know yourself...or having the outcome of your interactions with other people be leaving them with that idea.
We´ve officially crossed the line of a thousand visits!
My first post on this blog was back in October 29. Thank you for coming by, for your comments on and offline. I still suck at drawing on the Wacom pad, but that´s another story ;-) Let´s continue the conversation.
I want to thank all these bloggers for writing on their own voice and inspiring other people, me among them:
Hugh MacLeod
Enrique Dans
Charles Green
Seth Godin
Evelyn Rodríguez
Miss Rogue
Nick Smith
It´s a gud laif. Enjoy...
This is an idea I´ve had running around in my head for a while...Tonight I saw this post by Henrik Edberg and finally got it out of the system. Highly recommendable blog.
Ok, sleepy again. I wonder if I´ll ever get to sleep more than seven hours. Don´t you wish you had enough with just three? I do. Tomorrow the day starts at 6 am, meeting at 8. Maybe we all need to read this book ;-)
gud nait.
I think it´s time we review the six degrees of separation statement/axiom/theorem, don´t you?
I mean, what year was that formulated? It came out of an experiment, right? Hmm...let´s see.
Ok, here´s what Wikipedia says. Apparenty the experiment was carried out in 1967 and then again in 2001. In the latter, the conclusion was that six degrees is an average, not a maximum.
Anyways, my point is that the connectedness we´re achieving by means of technology should lower this number in the next decade or so, at least to 4. What do you think?
I bought this Wacom Graphire4 tablet and have been practicing drawing on it. At first it´s harder than drawing on paper but then you start getting the feel of it and discovering features, etc. The previous post was drawn on it too.
This is my modern version of ¨So much ado about nothing¨...
The facts are: more and more people get divorced each year and people are losing faith in marriage/life-long relationships. There were 14,000 divorce cases in Puerto Rico in 2006 (25,000 people got married). Spain is the EU member in which marriages last longer, an ¨astonishingly¨ 13.8 years.
Why? Why do we make the difficult decision to spend the rest of our lives with another person and then fail miserably in so many cases? Is there a way we could save the drama? Let it be clear that I´ve never been married, let alone been in a relationship that lasted more than 8 months. But I think a good way to analyze this is in terms of goals and outcome.
Think of the many times you´ve heard somebody say ¨I´m ready to settle, at this time in MY life, finding a partner for the rest of MY life is what I need.¨ Their GOAL is to spend the rest of their life with someone (mistakingly identified with marriage). The outcome is very likely to be a STRIIIIIKEEE 1!! after a few years.
Now ask a couple that´s been together for, say, 30 years. Ask them ¨how do you do it?¨ You´ll get an answer that talks about them living for the other person, loving the other person everyday is the goal. As a result (OUTCOME), they´ve been able to spend their lives together.
How about changing the approach to marriage from the mindset of ¨I want to spend the rest of my life with someone, let´s go out and find her¨ to ¨I want to make someone happy that will make me happy, and as a result spend the rest of our lives together¨? Make the other person´s happiness your goal, and find someone with the same intention.
This is another smallapproachtothebigpicture. What´s yours?
So this gets a bit personal Today. It´s about not being aware that THIS is the only moment we have.
It´s funny: everyone who goes through a near death experience always says how it changed their perspective on life, and how they try to live to the fullest, enjoying each minute.
It´s even funnier how all of us that haven´t gone through it don´t even bother to try.
Someone said Today ¨...it´s only noon, I wish it was 5 pm already¨ and I started counting the many times I´ve said that too, and wondering if that´s what we´re here for: Longing for moments of joy while living (dying) through the ¨rest of the time¨. Obviously not. I´ve got the ¨what¨ clear. Now, ¨how¨ not fall into that?
Maybe this helps: Today is the only day of your life. I think I read it somewhere, so my thankful apologies to whoever said it so wonderfully. How many things would you regret not having done (mainly because you kept putting them off) if you died in two days?
I bet that´s an exercise the people that´ve gone through a near death experience have done, either at the time or after.
¨One Day Life¨ was the name of the band I played drums in back in Spain. The band was named so because (this is how we would explain it): our songs are about life in general; life is condensed into 1 CD; what if you could condense all life into One Day?
Well, Today I realized the real reason is because your life is only one day long: Today. And back in the day I used to play guitar too, which I enjoyed very much. I´ve been willing to pick up a guitar and start playing again for months! but for a few stupid reasons still haven´t done it. So Today I went, bought one, and played and played and played (yes, my fingers are yelling at me...). And it felt great. Can´t wait to be able to play Jack Johnson and sing along.
I think this is all related to the idea of ¨flow¨, ¨embrace the chaos¨, etc. The Smashing Pumpkins said it better back in 1993:
¨Today is the greatest
day I´ve ever known
can´t live for tomorrow
Tomorrow´s much too long¨
Here´s to ¨I want to look beautiful but I don´t know why...oh wait, I do...because that´s what´s expected.¨
Name your insecurities....then kill them.
Inspired by Incubus´ song ¨Nowhere Fast¨.
Some lyrics:
Will I ever get to where it is that I am going?
Will I ever follow through with what I, what I had planned?
...
Will I ever get to where I'm going?
If I do, will I know when I'm there?
You call a company to demand a service. They´re open from 9am to 5 pm. It´s 5.02 pm and already nobody answers the phone. Result: you think ¨these lazy people drop the pen at 5.00 and they don´t care. I´m sure they´re still around and don´t pick up cause I´m 2 minutes late...¨ The ¨go the extra mile for our customers¨ attitude is nowhere to be seen.
If I were responsible for customer service, I´d pay the receptionist or whomever it is that answers the phone in the first place 10 minutes of overtime before and after business hours to be there and make sure those ¨borderline¨ calls are properly attended. I believe it exemplifies the customer-centric attitude it is talked about so much (¨we´re not just here from 9 to , we´re here for you¨). Plus, those ¨borderline¨ calls are usually very important.
What do you think?
Dicen los expertos que nunca vamos a poder predecir el tiempo con exactitud (teoría del caos, etc.). Lo interesante de todo esto es cómo interacciones en apariencia insignificantes pueden tener una influencia determinante en el ¨macro¨. El ejemplo de cómo el batir de alas de una mariposa puede influir en las corrientes de aire de la otra parte del mundo es clásico. Hoy me enteré de otro.
Resulta que el plancton, ese microorganismo de 1 milímetro de ancho que vive en el agua, ayuda a regular la temperatura de la Tierra. ¿Cómo? Este es el proceso:
La Tierra se calientaEn hechos como este se fundamenta la ¨Hipótesis de Gaia¨, de Lovelock, que afirma que la biomasa regula las condiciones las condiciones del planeta para hacer la vida más hospitalaria a las especies que aquí habitan (mos) (pena que algunasa especies nos empeñemos en hacer lo contrario).
El océano se calienta
Los migroorganismos se ¨excitan¨ y se aparean
Al aparearse liberan DMS (di-metil sulfitos)
El DMS se evapora y provoca condensación
Las nubes blancas tapan parte de los rayos de Sol
La temperatura de la Tierra baja.
