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Review: Word$uccess

If you are looking for a simple text which can provide you with some useful tools and habits to improve your communication skills, Word$uccess by Pete Geissler is the right book for you.

Author has demonstrated the importance of articulation and ability to clearly express your views in one's professional career. He has presented the art of communication through interviews of some successful professionals and also tells how they have achieved it.

Your key learning will be:

1. What habits one need to practice, to develop effective communication skills.
2. What are the simple tools to achieve Articulation.
3. Audience Profile Worksheet to understand and know your audience well and form your message accordingly.

To summarize, I learned a lot from this text and have started to practice the tools....

Blogs for Sale

Yes, no kidding..this is real as I feel from this email below, which I received 4 days ago. Someone is interested in buying my blog, since there has not been much activity here lately. This has come as a great surprise to me. For one reason, there are so many blogs in this blogosphere and hardly there are as many readers. Secondly, what made this gentleman interested in making this offer to my blog. My blog's title or address do not match any company, brand or product's name either. So I am wondering, why me...????

I have asked him these questions and he maybe kind enough to respond back to my email...I hope....!!!

Dear owner of justkanishk.blogspot.com,

I noticed that your blog "justkanishk.blogspot.com" hasn't been updated for a while. I'd like to buy this blog.

I assume that you are not interested in running it anymore.

I can buy this blog for $50.

What do you think?

ABCD XYZ
(Real name not shown intentionally)

Blink: Power of Thinking Without Thinking

blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking, the title itself is attractive enough to make someone interested in reading this text by Malcolm Gladwell. Author has done a great job in weaving examples from a wide variety of professions, functions and areas like relationships, politics, military, medical, crime, personality, connoisseurs, etc. to illustrate his main point:
The Power of Adaptive Unconscious of Human Mind.

Author states that human mind works through two strategies, the conscious strategy and through adaptive unconscious. First strategy is when use data, information and analysis to draw a conclusion and make decision, whereas second is when we make decisions on basis of that "gut feeling". This is when we act instantly on a thought which flashes in our mind and forces us to make a decision. The question now is: Is the accuracy or quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort spent into making it? Per Gladwell, "Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately."

Author has used technique of "thin slicing" i.e. power of our unconscious (the internal computer) to create a subjective impression using very little information., to explain this kind of decision-making. He has also cited some erroneous decisions (Warren Harding Error & an encounter in Bronx) and some great decisions from medical and military, (Cook County Hospital in Chicago & Van Riper, respectively).

In my opinion, our brain certainly has that great power of making a split-second decision, but it is upto us, how we develop and tap that unusual potential. We can use these techniques like mid reading, facial expression recognition etc but it certainly requires practice and a certain level of expertise to utilize them for our benefit. I would recommend reading this book with an unbiased mind and think, don't just blink.

Read my post blink vs Six Sigma

The Real Oops!!!

This is a tribute to one of my previous post, which was dedicated to my laptop. My laptop has been one of my proud possession, as I configured a state-of-the-art system in April 2005. At least, thats what I thought at that time and my dream was to make it a multimedia powerhouse, which I truly accomplished. My laptop became a desktop connected to nine USB 2.0 devices through a hub and a great 22" monitor, keyboard, external sound card and Bose speakers. I was excited and was utilizing it aptly, but it seems like laptop didn't liked the dull and boring life of staying at top of a hutch of a table.

One Friday evening, while I was trying to connect some wires at the back, it jumped from the shelf of the hutch, bumped on the table and landed on the floor. And there I was, at the back of the table in an awkward position (which I will not describe...), entangled in about 12 wires (remember 9 devices..!) with no view of the rest of the world. The sound made me feel the real Oops...!!! I think I almost visualized the oops for first time in my life. Anyway, the sturdy system sustained a lot of damage to the hing, keys and top. It cannot be closed now, so it is essentially a desktop. This post is being posted through the same tough Dell Inspiron....Hats Off to My Lapi...!!! Check the pictures for better visualization.

Writing is an Art!

I perfectly agree with this! Writing is truly an art, a skill, which develops as one practices more. It doesn't matter what kind of writing, be it a story, biography, book, product review or blog, art of writing is certainly a required skill. Ever since I got out of touch with blogosphere, I feel that I am loosing my writing skills, which are now merely confined to responding to work emails and other job related stuff. For me, blog writing was a serious thing (though a very good friend disagrees with this and questioned it once) and I was able to organize and process my thoughts before jotting them down. Of course, that does not mean I am gonna put all the boring, lifeless and deep philosophical thoughts. But whatever it was, it was not senseless.

After getting entrapped in the vicious circle of 8 to 5 (sometimes more) work, ensure learning, paying bills with an aim of "having fun" whenever possible, I quietly slipped out of blogosphere and blogging. Now I realize what a mistake it was !!! Authors write books on Effective Writing, How to Improve your Writing Skills (I made up these title, not sure if they exist) and what not and lot of people buy them. Being a hands-on engineer, my opinion is that the best way to lean and master a desired/required skill is to start practice it immediately.

Said this, begins my quest with myself to blog on a regular basis!
Le thou blog!!!

Car Wash: Process Revisited

An interesting happening with me in past couple of days (rather weeks) has relivened my long dead blogging skills. And it had made me curious that how come I stopped blogging and got out of touch of the blogger world ??? Anyway, I am back now.

So, here is this interesting story. I am living in Cincinnati and we have an expressway which connects two major Interstates here. It is just about a 4 mile stretch and carries heavy traffic always, because of "East meets West" thing. (For the uninitiated, it runs east to west and vice-versa). Now this 4 mile stretch is under construction for last 10 weeks, only on the weekends. What makes me curious is that why is it taking so looonnnggg?? Sometimes. I think to stop by there on a weekend night and ask them that what kind of technological or constructional innovation they are bringing there?? But I then refrain from doing this, you know, curiosity killed the cat, kind of thing.

What happens when you drive your car through a road construction area, where they are spraying concrete ? (yes, conrete, not tar). Well, simple. Your car gets a visibly thick layer of concrete all over in a randomly sprayed fashion. After a while, it gets all over your mind and one fine sunny evening you decide to clean it. Thats where this post comes handy....to give you the tips.

• No matter how much high-pressure water you spray, you can't get rid of the layer of concrete.
• The whole affected surface has to be rubbed with detergent water.
• Once the scrubbing is done and you spray water again all over the car and start getting the feel of accomplishment, WAIT...its not over.
• Let car dry off, and then the areas which missed your srubbing would be clearly visible.
• Again spray water over whole car and try to clean the remaining areas. Caution: Dont rub while its dry. It might induce some scratches on the surface.
• Repeat this process couple of times (at least thrice).
• Finally, in a while, either you are too tired or its already dark outside.
• Then next morning, inspect the car again for the remaining white marks of concrete. If there is no mark, bingo...take a picture and post it on your blog.
• Thats what is known as an accomplishment..!!!
  

To Whomever it May Concern

This is to notify all the readers (past or present) that the owner of this blog i.e. the author of all the posts here, is very much alive and enjoying the mental state, which could be aptly called "in senses", and the physical state as "active and healthy". His long absence from blogosphere should not be considered as his complete annihilation in the materialistic physical world. His inability to compose a meaningful post for this blog or post his comments on his regular-reads could merely be attributed to the transition period, a new phase of life, he is passing through. Now he has well adjusted to this new, exciting, demanding phase. He wants to convey one message to you: "Kanishk's Realm might not be a happening place in last two months, but Kanishk's life was."

So, now keep checking !!!

Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica

If you are a passionate internet user (which probably you are, if you are reading blogs), then you must be aware of Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia is an open-source encyclopaedia, created and edited by its users (meaning anyone who has an internet connected computer) whereas Britannica is the copyright protected encyclopaedia written and edited by some selected stalwarts.

Comparing these two, Wikipedia could be aptly labeled as democratic (of the people, for the people, by the people) and Britannica is definitely capitalistic (by selected few, for the privileged few). So, now keeping this in mind, which one is supposed to be error-free? Here are the interesting results of a study done by Nature (taken from this article):

In the midst of all this controversy, Nature published the results of an analysis of a broad range of entries from the websites of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica which shows a different picture. Even so, the results were impressive. After looking at 42 articles, according to Nature, “only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia”.
"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."

One problem is that this Wikipedia is vulnerable to is vandalism. (Remember the saying, Too many chefs spoil the dish?) Some noted instances are reported in this article. But one thing is for sure, that Wikipedia has revolutionized the way of sharing the information on internet. “Wiki” (Hawaiian for "unpaid labor") is now the term used for anything open-source and edited by anyone.

One thing I observed is that Wikipedia do has an updated entry for Britannica, but Britannica Online returns “No results found for Wikipedia”. Anyone from the Britannica’s editorial board reading this?


f you haven't tried Wiki yet for digging some piece of information, check it out.

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely the views of the author and has no relation paid or forced with Wikipedia.

Another Hiatus

No activity or meaningful post on this blog since a long time. The only attributable reason for this long hiatus could be my lack of zeal for blogging and in general, all those things I am usually passionate for. Actually, when the things are not going the way you want them to be, they take toll on your other sides. Moreover, it seems that there has some loss or deterioration of my writing skills too. Whats more strange now-a-days is my inability to organize my thoughts and express them in a readable way. So, in order to get rid of all these recently acquired negative traits, I am back into blogging, first reading and more reading and then writing. After all, blogging is a serious writing…isn’t it ??

Brief Hiatus & The Dilemma

I have been very busy lately and was not able to keep it regular in blogosphere. But now I am back with the usual vigor. Now I ma gonna make you feel my presence by overwhelming your blogs with my comments and posts on my own blogs.

Sometimes, I get intot he confusion about what to write and what not? For instance, I do not like to write about my daily chores (nor do I read) or about the daily happenings. I do like to express my views and quote them as my "idiosyncracy", just in case, if they are in strong contradiction with others views. Thats like being diplomatic, so that I dont gt sued or dragged into a useless altercation.

The phase I am going through right now is very thought-provoking. This is the time which makes you think what you are worth of or are you worthless altogether? This is the phase of being "unemployed" after an advanced engineering degree. I think a lot to write about it, but the more I think to organize my thoughts to write, the more pessisimistic I become and then eventually I dump the idea to do so. But I wish, I would have been able to write about it to track my ups and downs during this difficult time. I am certain that currently I am down. Anyway, wait for some more posts.

My Thanksgiving Meal

Hope you all had a great time yesterday with fun, food and family. I had a great time yesterday with a hefty meal. You can get a very good idea from the picture above. It was really an awesome food, all home-cooked and most of the ingredients fresh from the garden. That was really an all American food. What we eat at fast-food joints, subs etc is not the real American food. There is lot more than just sandwiches, hamburgers and fries. But one thing is evident, that it is based mostly on different forms and varieties of meat. For some (or rather most, I should say) Indians who do not eat meat at all or are very selective in eating meat, it becomes a bit difficult to enjoy real Thanksgiving meal. Indians are either strictly vegetarian or eat chicken, lamb and fish only in the name of meat. Beef and pork are not eaten because of either religious reasons or personal reasons. The first taste of turkey for me was on my first Thanksgiving meal in 2003 and it was with cajun-filling, as I was in LSU at that time. I really liked it very much and since then I have never looked back :). I think it must be similar for other Indians also who come to US. But I admire those people who stick to their vegetarian tendency and eat just green, no meat at all. It is really difficult to manage to live here without eating meat and strive on vegetarian meals only. Everywhere you go, be it fast-food joints or restaurants, menu will have hardly one or two green meals, which means limited choices everywhere. But still, a lot of my friends do survive and I admire their spirits. And the spirits of Thanksgiving too (which was the main idea of this post, but I digresse a bit).

More in Hindi

एक और प्रयास
हिंदी में लिखने के मेरे विचार को काफी सराहा गया है और इससे मेरा उत्साह भी बढा है। हालंकि साथ ही इस बात का एहसास भी हो रहा है कि हिंदी में लिखना इतना आसान नंही है। बात सिर्फ लिखने तक ही सीमित नंही है,वह तो मैं कुछ ही दिनों में इस कुंजीपटल का अभ्यस्त हो जाऊँगा । बात विचारों की है। अब आप कहेंगे कि मेरी सुई फिर वंही आकर अटक गई, लेकिन क्या करूँ, समस्या भी तो बड़ी है। अव्वल तो विचार ही अंग्रेजी में आते हैं, फिर अनुवाद करते समय कमबख्त अपने शब्दकोष में कमी पड़ जाती है। हद तो तब होती है जब अंग्रेजी का वर्ड दिमाग में होता है और हिंदी का शब्द गले तक आते आते फिर नीचे चला जाता है। फिर अक्षरग्राम, अक्षरमाला तथा अन्य चिट्ठों पर ठोड़ी सी विहंगम दृष्टि डालनी पड़ती है और काम बन जाता है। लगता है अब नियमित रूप से हिंदी लिखने पढने का काम शुरू करना पड़ेगा, तभी कुछ बात बनेगी और थोड़ा आत्मविश्वास भी आयेगा। आप लोग मेरी प्रविष्टियाँ पढते रहिए और बेफिक्र होकर टिप्पणी करते रहिए, चाहे अपनी राय प्रकट कीजिए, चाहे मेरी बात का समर्थन कीजिए या आलोचना कीजिए, पर टिप्पणी जरूर कीजिए। मुझे प्रसन्नता होती है ।
**************************************************

My friends have appreciated my decision to start writing in hindi and I too liked it. But the problem is still the same. Its not about typing hindi using the standard english keyboard. To some extent, this has been taken care of by the UTC, Universal Text Coding, which makes it easy to type as compared to earlier. So with some practice, I will certainly be fluent in that. But the problem is thought process. Studying english over the period of time (since Kinder Garden) and then with english as the medium of study in graduate and advanced degrees, I feel that my thought process is now dominated by english. I am not opposed to that, but this is making writing in hindi a bit difficult. First, I have to translate my thoughts and views and then usually I fell short of the hindi vocabulary. After a bit effort and going over through other hindi sites, however, I can come over this obstacle. But now I need to start reading and writing in hindi regularly. You please keep reading and posting your comments, whatever you feel like. Blogger or myself do not charge for posting comments..we are generous. So, keep reading and posting. I like it.

Education is Life itself ????

Yesterday, I added the links on my blog about the schools I have been to. While going over my undergrad school's (Punjab Engineering College) website, I saw this picture showing the my college's philosophy. It says:

Education is a social process...

Education is growth...

Education is not only preparation for life,

Education is Life Itself.

I went down the memory lane, about 7 years ago on August 18,1998, my first day in college after I got admission there. I was sitting on the stairs in front of the entrance of the auditorium, exactly in front of this sign. At that time, I found it really kool, fandoo, awesome, impressive etc. I am sure now that I dint understood the real meaning, the real depth in this statement. But now I do understand the importance of education. Education doesnt mean just the degree or diploma you get....it means how much you have learnt. Each phrase of this statement is so meaningful (if you think about it). The four memorable years, I spent in PEC, I dint just learned from the books or classes, but I learned through the life there. Seven years ago, I found this phrase really kool, fandoo, awesome and impressive, but today, I find it inspiring, meaningful and sensible...................... because, now I am educated !!!

A Trip to Mountains

For quite sometime, I was getting the feel that I am not using my dear camera, Olympus C-765UZ anymore. This is very much unlike me. I can't live without my camera. So, motivated by my desire to take some good pictures and driven by my passion for photography, yesterday evening, I ventured outside to capture the fall colors. But it seems that Mother Nature had something else in her mind. The trees outside were not blooming with the beautiful natural fall color combinations. They are waiting ..and so are we. I will go on a trip again next weekend and see my luck.
But still, I managed to get some good snapshots of the natural scenery. Initially, the results were not good, but after a little adjustment with white balance, I was able to get some excellent shots. Check out some of the imags below.

Corrosion of a Mind

Sometimes life brings one to a certain point where the person feels standstill, simply standstill, no motion, no activity. It feels good initially because he can relax; he can chill out and regain his passion and zeal. But when this period stretches beyond the expected limit, it creates some different kind of emotions like uncertainty, insecurity, ambiguity and even despair. After awhile, it gives the feeling of being corroded. Corrosion is the process of gradual decay and deterioration when anything is left on its own subjected to the natural reactants (common example is rusting of iron). The most dangerous trait of this corrosion process is that it is irreversible. Whatever has been corroded cannot be converted back to its original form. On a closer perspective, it can be seen that even human beings are also susceptible to this dangerous phenomenon. However, in humans the loss is not in terms of physical matter, but rather of intellectual matter. As long as our life is in our control, our intellectual matter keeps on developing and evolving. But when our life gets dependent on some external parameters and comes to a standstill, we start experiencing corrosion, the degradation. This is dangerous, extremely dangerous. In order to grow ahead in life, we need to evolve continuously …without any standstill….!!!

Moverz n Shakerz

Two weeks ago, I moved out of the city where I did my Masters and moved to a friend’s place in the area, where I am interested to live and work. Anyway, that’s not a big deal. Everyone does so…known as: moving to greener pastures (however I have moved to north which is mostly white of snow). Now this process of moving is a painstaking one. You ought to take so many binary decisions. Either you can keep something and pack it (considered 1) or just trash it (considered 0). Decision 1 is not dependent just on your desire and attachment to that particular thing, but rather subjected to the availability of space in your suitcase and boxes. Decision 0 is affected by your ability to sever your attachment with that thing and respectfully place it in the trash can. Once placed, there is no turning back. By the time you will go to take it out from trash can (hats off to you), your roommate must have dumped some more garbage over it (sometimes roommates act faster than you think). Since I am moving every year from past 7 years, my packing skills have greatly improved. The fine print here is that my ability to part away from my belongings has decreased. Then, I run into the great conflict of volume vs. weight. All airlines have meticulously fixed their baggage policies in such a way that it is literally impossible to fix the stuff in the bag without exceeding the weight requirements. After making several combinations and adjustments, I finally made my mind to pay extra charges to the airlines (assuming it to be act of generosity and making a major contribution to prevent one more airline going bankrupt). Finally, thou moved safely…..!!!

Life@Airport

Its been quite a while when I last posted something on this blog and I think, I should better get regular here before others like you stop visiting my realm altogether. Well right now I am sitting at a place, where no one would like to sit and relax until forced to do so. Any guesses…well…before your mind wanders, let me break the silence….I am sitting at an airport waiting for my next connection which will take after 2 hours (hopefully…always to be added when talking about air-travel). There is something strange about an airport. So many people arrive here and leave; so many flights land here and take-off, so many bookstores, cafes, bars, restaurants are full of people here yet no single soul would ever express his/her desire to stay at an airport. Have you ever heard of someone planning his trip and saying lets fly from Atlanta, GA to Denver, CO visiting JFK in New York, O’Hare in Detroit and then San Francisco International Airport in our way ? Well, airports have everything ranging from a McDonalds to posh Sports Bar & Grills, Starbucks, bookstores, restrooms, lounges, wireless connection etc which are essential for one’s life. There is a possibility of meeting strangers and making friends or maybe more than that. I agree that cost of living is a little high at airports and it would be hard to find a place to sleep, but still it’s not a bad place to spend a couple of hours.

I have spent quite a lot of time at airports (my sincere thanks to the airlines and unpredictable weather conditions) and observed them closely. I have spent long layovers at airports which were actually not in my itinerary altogether. While coming from India, I spent 3 days in Boston, where I was not at all supposed to be. Last Sunday while enjoying one layover at Cincinnati airport, I met a guy whom I have met more than 5 years ago for a few minutes during one of my summer internship in India. He didn’t remember me (evident from the big ? mark on his face) and was amazed (evident from the * in his eyes) at my memory (I don’t forget people until I want to). Without digressing from my pont, lest ask this question: Would someone be willing to accept a grand prize of staying at a posh airport for 3 days and 2 nights?

Edited after sitting at this airport for 1.5 hrs: I completely agree with the fact that chairs at airports are not comfortable esp while sitting with a laptop.

Kim 'The Babe' shines !!

So, finally the Belgian Toughness shines in the US Open after defeating the top seeds of Tennis i.e.Sharapova 'the tigress', Venus Williams 'the powerhouse' and Mary Pierce 'the slammer staging a comeback' !!! Wow..what an achievement. This was the first time I had watched Kim Clijsters game completely and analyzed her performance. Her coverage of the court by exceptional stretching and reaching the ball was simply remarkable. She must have made her mom (Belgian Gymnastic champ) and dad (outstanding soccer player) proud of themselves. Her game has the technique, strategy and tenacity and offcourse excellent physical abilities. And then she had the determination to remove the black spot of not having any grand slam title. So, she got the US Open 2005 trophy. Her game against Maria Sharapova was a 'not to be missed one' and I dint missed it either.

Afterall my belief in 'a true fighter fights till the end' became stronger than ever...Yes !!!!

Inspired a Blog

Well..I inspired a Blog..Wow..a very close friedn fo mine got inspired from my blog..got into the world of blogging and then decided to put words to her thoughts..she started her own blog. Here it is:

Dewdrops of Thoughts

Check this out & leave your comments.