Shantanu's Blog

PressThink: PressThink's Top Ten Ideas for 2004: Introduction:
1. The Legacy Media.
2. He said, she said, we said.
3. What the printing press did to the Catholic Church the blogging press does to the media church.
4. Open Source Journalism, or: 'My readers know more than I do.'
5. News turns from a lecture to a conversation.
6. 'Content will be more important than its container.'
7. 'What once was good--or good enough--no longer is.'
8. 'The victory of affinity over geography.'
9. The Pajamahadeen.
10. The Reality-Based Community.

The Gartner Fellows: Ray Ozzie's Interview: "What really does disappoint me is that we as technology users keep forgetting the lessons we learn; we've got very short memories. For example - issues of centralization versus decentralization, control versus empowerment. There's a pendulum that appears to keep swinging back and forth, and we keep polarizing the issue, when in fact we should have learned that both are necessary. "

• Effective leaders check their performance.
  
• They know how to establish a mission.
  
• They know how to say no.
  
• They develop their priorities and don't have more than two. They make sure the people with whom they work understand their priorities.
  
• Effective leaders match the objective needs of their company with the subjective competencies.
  
• They do not get organized around localities but around clients.
  
• They don't travel so much, instead use technology.
  
• If they say no, it should be no, and if they said yes, it should be yes.
  
• Delegate: Know exactly what you can do and what you can't do. Never try to be an expert if you are not. Build on your strengths and find strong people to do the other necessary tasks. Don't try to be somebody else. By now you have your style. This is how you get things done.
  
• Midlife Crisis: Within organizations there are people who, typically in their 40s, hit a midlife crisis when they realize that they won't make it to the top or discover that they are not yet first-rate. Give them a parallel challenge. Encourage people facing a midlife crisis to apply their skills in the non-profit sector.
  
• Character Development: We have been mostly talking about developing people's strength and giving them experiences. Character is not developed that way. That is developed inside and not outside. I think spiritual programs are the main development agents of character today.
  

http://www.forbes.com/2004/11/19/cz_rk_1119drucker_print.html

What Not to Do: "# Mistake 1: Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it's viable.
'This is really the most important mistake of all. They say 9 [out] of 10 entrepreneurs fail because they're undercapitalized or have the wrong people. I say 9 [out] of 10 people fail because their original concept is not viable. They want to be in business so much that they often don't do the work they need to do ahead of time, so everything they do is doomed. They can be very talented, do everything else right, and fail because they have ideas that are flawed.'"

Why does Blogger.com have 'Potemkin Permalinks'? Because they look real, but aren't.

A permalink in the blogging world is a URL pointing to a post which will never move. In other words if you link to the post now, a visitor may still follow your link after several years. It is a great way to enable web-wide discussions.

In Google's Blogger, however, permalinks aren't that permanent. As soon as you change the title of your post (say, to correct a spelling error you made), the URL will change. This is because Google uses the fashionable way of including some of the words of the title in the URL as well (just why this is so fashionable is hard to tell)

Another problem connected to Blogger's 'permalinks' surfaces as soon as you decide to switch from multiple-posts-per-page to single-post-per-page mode. Republishing your blog would mean your complete archive (and all of its permalinks) break. So you have the choice between breaking it all, leaving your old content for linking purposes and create duplicates, moving to a new system, or sticking with multiple-posts-per-page publishing.

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_12_02_index.html#110199413040106477

In the article "Turn AutoShapes into Pictures" Ellen Finkelstein has explained something that makes me feel like going to school again and start learning powerpoint all over again!

1. You can create a graphic shape using the rectange tool on drawings toolbar.
2. Right click and choose Format AutoShape...
3. On the Colors and Lines Tab, choose Fill - Color: Fill effects...
4. Choose "From center" in the Shading styles option.

You can convert a graphic to a picture easily:
1. Select the graphic, diagram, etc. To select additional objects, press Shift and click or drag diagonally across all the objects.
2. Cut the selection to the Clipboard
3. Choose Edit>Paste Special.
4. Choose one of the Picture options.
5. Click OK.

Once you have your picture, you can use the Picture toolbar to crop it, change its brightness, change its contrast, or choose Washout from the Color button's drop-down list to create a watermark (a very light image that works well as a background).

To use your picture as a background, cut it again to the Clipboard, open the Slide Master, and paste it. You'll probably want to move it behind the text placeholders, so right-click the picture and choose Order>Send to Back.

Starting with version 2002 (part of Office XP), you can save any graphic as a separate image file. The advantage is that you can then open the file in an image editor, such as Photo Editor or Photoshop, and manipulate it further. Just select the objects, right-click and choose Save as Picture.

http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/powerpoint_tip_autoshapes2pictures.html

Google fun
As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. Use the arrow keys to navigate the results. Sometimes, searching can be fun!
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&complete=1

Blogging philosophy
Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek’s work, as as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the “blogosphere.” There are 4 million blogs. The internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers.

At first, it does seem like an add-on and it does take time to explore the different avenues to see the incredible possibilities.But the payoff is enormous! This type of learning gives me ownership, a voice, and a stake in the whole process. I'm writing, learning, and engaging in dialogue in a way I had never done before. All this with a simple piece of technology that costs little or nothing, allows me to publish instantly, receive comments and continue the conversations.

MSNBC - Plastic beats paper as check-writing declines: "Transactions made using electronic systems including debit and credit cards have surpassed paper checks for the first time, according to a study released Monday by the Federal Reserve."

Andrew Lark: Email Isn't the Problem...: "The problem is that the average employee takes little time to communicate effectively. Or, they haven't developed the skills. Or, like it has for many, email has become like an arcade game in which we win by shooting the bastards down as they flood our inbox. What is said matters less than the quickness of the finger. This eventually develops into a deep form of gaming addiction in which we have to be ready 24x7 to fire!
Remember - you don't do email. You communicate."