It can help in achieving superior results if we frequently evaluate ourselves by asking relevant questions regarding our own technical expertise, organizational and management capabilities, attitude towards others and work, confidence level, sense of responsibility, professionalism etc.

Self realization is the key here to find out what have we achieved and what improvements can we make to further excel in our careers.

Please share what efforts do you make towards self improvement and development? Furthermore, how can its importance be realized by others for achieving overall excellence both at the individual and organizational levels?

Therefore, short vacations or break from work is an effective way of refreshing one’s mind as it brings positive energy that can be very helpful indeed. Besides, it gives an opportunity to spend some quality time with family and friends that is usually neglected.

For this reason, importance of vacations/leaves should be considered by the management because it can tremendously help in improving overall employee productivity, creativity and job satisfaction. Therefore, when the workload is of less significance or a suitable standby resource is available, employees should be encouraged to take time offs during which they can relax and when they resume their responsibilities; they will be more energetic and enthusiastic as a result, an improved quality of life and work can be achieved.

Please share your thoughts on this. When was the last time you took a vacation or break from work? Furthermore, what changes did you notice on the quality of life and work before and after these vacations/leaves?

architect. At this moment, enterprise architects have a unique chance to usher in concepts like business architecture and fine-tune business agility. Will they make progress or squander the opportunity?

The economy’s grip on IT budgets and the fast-changing sourcing models like cloud computing are pointing to a reckoning for EA — of now defining a vast new promise for IT business alignment improvement or, conversely, a potentially costly lost opportunity.

The need for EA seems to be more pressing than ever, yet efforts to professionalize EA do not necessarily lead to increased credibility and adoption, at least not yet.

It is generally observed that the feedbacks are not given when it is critically required which can foster de-motivation among employees. Especially from an employee point of view, there’s nothing better than being recognized for the work they do and every little effort they put in their work to make it a success.

Recognition can be both monetary and non monetary, it’s not always the monetary benefits that one desires to get; at times verbal appreciation can do wonders which is normally considered as an under rated method of praising somebody’s work.

Would like to know, what suggestions based on your personal experience would you give on how to honor/praise employees’ efforts, thereby maintaining a contented and motivated workforce?

We’ve all had our fair share of discussions about the benefits of the Internet. Messengers, email, social media networks, VoIP, video conferencing, publishing, information access and the like. What we seldom discuss, however, is the other side of the coin. Just how safe is our virtual presence, and all our private details associated with it?

Consider facebook, for instance. You can find me there, even if I don’t want you to. Did you know that NOTHING is ever removed from facebook - even if you chose to delete/remove something - facebook just removes it from display, but the data itself still exists in the background. As for emails, Gmail uses content within emails to ‘best choose’ what ads to display while I’m logged in.

The fine print on all TOR’s does not give me any concrete assurances about non-disclosure to third parties. All providers ‘reserve rights’ to publish, delimit, ban, remove or store my data. Course, they do add lines about ‘valuing’ my privacy, but hey , don’t we all ‘value’ it?

If this was not enough, all Internet traffic is ‘logged’, source, destination, hops, right down to the last pulse. What, where , when - its all documented. To add insult to injury, there’s a social website (foursquare.com) that ‘allows’ you to publish ‘where you are’, turning travel into a social networking game of sorts. This is made possible by GPS technology via the users phone set.

Between the lines, it can also be defined as a self serving data warehouse of constantly changing humanoid locations, with users actually ‘detailing’ why they are going here n there. Too good to be true, really - if you look at it from a  surveillance PoV.

Coming to the question - Do you feel that today’s worldwide internet services(ranging from simple email services to complex social/GPS networks) invade your privacy, under the guise of  liberty and information access? More importantly, do you feel the exchange is worth the return?

If the aforementioned privacy concerns are genuine, how can regulatory authorities ensure that the end user is not being fleeced out of his privileged info whilst accessing flashy services over the Internet? How can I be sure that my  data is not being made available to third parties, off the record?

Comments appreciated

z

However, if such appointment takes place in different departments then it can be of a lesser concern for the employers because they will be working in different divisions, having dissimilar reporting lines with different sets of performance standards to be met. Nonetheless, the pros and cons associated with it should be understood because if it is identified and discussed in advance then there’s a probability that it can turn out to be a positive experience.

Would like to know, what according to you are the pros and cons of recruiting members of the same family in the same department or otherwise? Besides, what factors would you consider if you were given an authority to make a decision under such circumstances?

Google Games, built around some sort of partnership with casual-gaming company Zynga, is in the works and would be part of a larger social network called Google Me, according to technology blog Tech Crunch.

Statements from notable internet players, including Digg founder Kevin Rose and a former Facebook chief technical officer, have suggested in recent weeks that the search-engine giant is working on a social network geared toward rivaling Facebook.

TechCrunch this weekend reported that unnamed sources said Google has invested between $100 and $200 million in Zynga, the maker of successful online social games like “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.”

The investment part of the deal was confirmed last month and a “larger strategic project” is still in the works, according to that report.

A Zynga spokeswoman said Monday that the company has no comment on the reports. A Google spokesman referred questions to the company’s media-relations e-mail account, which did not respond to inquiries.

The popularity of Zynga’s games — more than 50 million people play them on any given day, according to developerAnalytics – could bring considerable heft to any online networking or gaming project Google launched.

The obvious question then would become whether the “Farmville” maker would pull its games from Facebook. That would be a tall order considering the success those games have seen.

The TechCrunch report also added a new wrinkle to the Google Me speculation — saying the Zynga deal would be part of a project called Google Games, according to sources.

On the question-and-answer site Quora, former Facebook technical officer Adam D’Angelo said the Google Me rumors are real. The project would build on Google Buzz, a social networking effort rolled out by Google in February, he said. Google Buzz has been widely criticized by tech pundits.

Reports have not offered details on how a Google site would look, whether it would link to Gmail and other Google pages like Buzz does, or how Google Games would integrate with it.

“This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this,”

“They realized that Buzz wasn’t enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.”

Reference: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/07/12/google.zynga.games/index.html?iref=NS1&fbid=4RtjXHrnuaM

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Ephlux Web 2.0 Gaming Success Story

When Gorillas are at War – Ephlux provides the ammunition!

http://www.ephlux.com/socialgamingplatform.htm

Free Is Bad? Why?

Why, you wonder, when all along we’ve sung the FOSS praises of GNU/Linux (hereafter referred to as the more simple “Linux,” with all deference to Stallman) and that Linux is free? What could be better than free?

If Linux Desktop is free and can’t gain more marketshare (estimates range somewhere around 1 percent Linux Desktop market penetration) then one or a combination of the above reasons must be why Linux fails. If Linux passes all points in the opening paragraph, what gives?

It turns out that when customers don’t know enough about a product, or the gestalt of a product, their only second best way to guess about the quality or value of that product is by price. It also turns out that for Linux Desktops and computers, how and why they work (or don’t), really is rocket-science hard. Heck, computers are what’s used to do rocket science, and general users don’t have the background to really know what determines “quality” in computers. This is especially true for the computer desktop.

Users know little about underlying technology that holds a desktop together, and they shouldn’t have to. That leaves users to more typical means to decide “quality.” One of the most universal is price. Since users can’t evaluate the technical underpinnings, they can decide that if it costs a lot, it must be superior. Or, in contrast (and this is Linux’s bane), if it is inexpensive (or FREE) it must be because it’s not as good.

But Is Linux Really Good Enough?

Glad you asked. Let’s revisit the opening common claims to Linux’s failings:

• Linux is too hard to learn: Fail. Linux, especially Linux Desktop, couldn’t be easier to learn. In the last 10 years Linux usability work has exploded with ideas and implementations. A Linux Desktop may be different (think Ubuntu vs. RedHat, Gnome vs. KDE), but it’s only different. I’ve never had to abandon teaching someone how to use a Linux Desktop.

• Linux is deficient: Nope. Not even close. As an anecdotal example, I recently connected an old XP laptop to my 1920×1200 monitor to make work on that computer easier. Alas, the video drivers available could not drive the resolution on my monitor — even after downloading and installing updates for XP and the vendor drivers. However, the Linux side of that dual-boot laptop happily fired up and handled the screen resolution perfectly. This is one example of many times I’ve seen Linux rise to a technical challenge while Windows failed.

This point begs more discussion. In future articles I promise to drill more deeply into this topic. For now, I submit that in my (more than anecdotal) opinion, Linux Desktop is far from deficient.

• Linux wasn’t meant for the general user: Uh-uh! Geek elites are confusing technical obfuscation of what is possible to do (Unix command line, etc.) with what is transparently easy to do today on any Linux Desktop (browse and manage files, surf the Internet, write and manage documents, handle e-mail, etc.). Linux can be as difficult as you want it to be to learn, but for general desktop use and day-to-day tasks, Linux Desktop couldn’t be more appropriate for general use.
• Linux (per Microsoft) is evil: Consider the source. ‘Nuff said.

Why Don’t Linux Servers Suffer Same Fate?

The users of Linux Server technology are extremely technical, and with good reason. They support technology on which businesses run.

Users of Linux Server barely blink that Linux is free — they’re much more interested that Linux is excellent. Their measuring stick is based on deep technological understanding, and hence they do not need to look to alternate valuations. And in the server market, Linux thrives in spite of being free.

Any Examples?

What about Mac OS X? I won’t argue the nuances of good, better and best, but really? Is OS X that much better than XP, Vista or 7? I happen to think OS X is better and Mac systems are well-designed and implemented, but is a US$2,000 MacBook Pro really $1,000 better than a comparably configured Windows 7 laptop (I’m being generous — you can find $600 comparable machines)? Much of Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) finesse is their marketing and the cachet it creates.

Furthermore, is “FREE” Linux, in comparison, as stature-less in value? Again, without getting all fanboy about any of the three, it’s clear in my opinion that Linux Desktop competes on par with 7 and OS X. But users looking for options wonder “Why free?” and shuffle Linux down the list — free must mean inferior!

Also consider the new Droid smartphones. Their Android operating systems are Linux-based. And the Droid smartphones are as expensive as Apple’s iPhone, as well as all other smartphones. People, these are Linux-based! And they’re wildly popular! And expensive. And popular. And Linux.

But Linux Has to Be Free!

Yes, Linux is Open Source and Linux is free. But there are myriad ways to combine the free Linux with added value. Water is free too (kind of), and you don’t find people hesitate to pay a buck-fifty for 12 ounces of it because it’s in a pretty plastic bottle! There are ways.

Then how?

I wish I knew, but I’m in the opinion business. I do think Linux Desktop gains main street cred when someone finds a way to cut, polish and mount a Linux Desktop diamond in the rough. Polished, packaged and priced like a real product, Linux Desktop offers attractive marketing opportunities. Linux Desktop is ready for prime time. Linux Desktop needs to look, feel, smell and cost like prime time. We’re more likely to proudly show off our shiny new desktop we bought. And that is how we create a Linux Desktop buzz.

Linux Desktop buzz is what’s been missing. Really. And the company that finds a way to create the buzz puts Linux a chip shot away from real market share. Linux Desktop — it’s going to cost you. And it should

Reference: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Linux-Doesnt-Cost-Anything—But-Maybe-It-Should-70377.html

Today is SNM day - where we find out just how much heat social networks are packing. Most of my IM projects get more traffic from social network propagation than they do from search engines these days. It is safe to say that SNM (social network marketing) is giving SEM (Search engine marketing) some stiff competition.

However, with SNM, its more a question of when, where and why - we have all kinds of networking sites; social, casual, professional and the like. Coming to the question - which three networking websites would you prioritize for marketing endeavors for:

a) Marketing a product

b) Marketing a service

Without a doubt, facebook/twitter are the most popular social networks today. But their focus being social networking- make them more of an indirect marketing medium in terms of commerce. Would love to see emergent/specific networks prioritized over popular/generic ones.

Will create a summary of most popular suggested networks at the end of the discussion. Comments appreciated, with rationale. Personal SNM experiences of contributors also welcome.

z

Since a new member (no matter how much experience he/she has) is generally apprehensive about the new employment, an appropriate orientation and introduction to the company and its different work units can help initiate a friendly work atmosphere for new recruits, reducing their fear of the unknown.

Would like to know as people are different in their approaches towards interacting with their subordinates, peers & superiors; for e.g. some are introverts while others are extroverts .Being a new recruit (hypothetically), which mode of interaction would suit you best and why?