When you feel your life sucks...

Remember - it's only for now :) - Avenue Q

Thanks to Olly and Sariel for the recommendation :)

Responsibility - "אחריות"

Following the financial crisis and the employers situation -
The following paragraph takes the word – ‘responsibility’ in Hebrew and explains the important meaning of it, by parsing every part of it. I’ll try to find something that is parallel to this in English. Meanwhile, I’ve added a brief explanation to each point.
I learned this model 3 times until now, in 3 different places –
Firstly - as a young team leader at the sea scouts. Secondly – as the head of the Tel-Aviv district students’ body.Thirdly – in the military officers’ course.
Each time the word had a different meaning for me.Today, as a young manager, I’m thinking about it a lot. It is important to me to take it with me towards the future, and remember its meaning always - even in good times.

המילה אחריות מורכבת מ –
The Hebrew word for responsibility = ‘Achraute’ is built of -
1. היא מתחילה באות א' ומסתיימת ב-ת' = לקיחת אחריות מחייבת כניסה לפרטים (הרלוונטיים) מ-א' עד ת'.
1. Starting at A and ending with Z = includes all the details.
2. מתחילה באות א' = אני. לקיחת אחריות מחייבת הבנה שלוקח האחריות – 'אני' - אהיה זה שייהנה מהסמכות והכבוד, אך גם זה שיישא בתוצאות מעשיי ומעשיי עובדיי לטובה ולרעה.
2. Begins with ‘A’ that means – ‘Ani’ = ‘I’. I’m the one that will be credited or charged for my actions and for my employees’ actions.
3. אח = כדי לשאת באחריות אני צריך לראות את עובדיי ואת שותפיי כאחיי. כשם שאדאג לאחיי אדאג גם לעובדיי ולצוות שלי.
3. ‘Ach’ = Brother = The manager that is responsible for people should treat of his employees and team of colleagues as he would of treat his brothers and sisters.
4. אחר = סובלנות. כל אחד בצוות הוא אחר ושונה. האדם בעל הסמכות צריך להיות סובלני מספיק כדי להבין את זה. אם הוא יודע כי לא יוכל להתמודד עם הצרכים של האחר, שלא ייקח את האחריות עליו.
4. ‘Acher’ = Other = Patience to the other.
5. אחרי = דוגמא אישית. אם הפרויקט קשה, המנהיג יישאר יחד עם אחרון אנשיו ויתמוך בו, גם אם אין לו בכלל מה לעשות באופן ספציפי לפרויקט.
5. ‘Acharay’ = After me = Self example.
6. אחריו = נתינת קרדיט. אחריות על אנשים משמעה לתת לאנשים להתקדם במקצוע שלהם ובתפקידם. להקשיב להם (לא רק לשמוע), להעריך אותם, לנסוך בהם בטחון ולתת להם להוביל מהלכים. אחריות לאנשיך משמעה – לעזור לאנשיך להיות מסופקים מתפקידם ולהתקדם בחייהם.
6. ‘Acharav’ = After him = Let your people lead processes and progress in their jobs and lives.
7. אחריות = ‘Achraute’

Annotating the real world - Augmented Reality in mobile phones

I love this technology direction for mobiles -

Imagine the ability to point your phone at a logo on a soda can and receive a video, ad, game, coupon from the manufacturer. Every sign, plate, cup, can, bottle is now an interactive company billboard. Next, imagine a trip to a museum where (through your mobile phone) you could play the 17th century piano display or interact with the 20 ft skelton of the dinosaur in front of you. Finally, story time with your child is now 3D, action packed adventure where you can literally watch a 3D model of Jack climbing the beanstalk.

For a short presentation go to - http://www.themediapowergroup.com/, click on the second tab – MAGITECH, and then on these tabs: ARL applications and Magic books.

Background – Augmented Reality is a new technology that enables the user to experience 3d graphics overlaid a live camera image and on ANY mobile phone.
Today, all the mobile vendors are investing in these kind of AR technologies in their phones, for many different attractive applications.

Another augmented reality application that will probably be available in the end of next year :

Boxes appear on the phone’s screen, highlighting known businesses and landmarks, such as the Empire State Building. The user can click one of these boxes to download information about that location from the Web. In Nokia’s mobile-augmented-reality prototype, a user can point a phone’s camera at a nearby building; the system calculates the building’s location and uses that information to identify it. Credit: Jean Probert
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18291/

Fun with Dick and Jane - the first post-Enron comedy

I love VOD; especially when I workout on my stationary bikes. My tip for motivation is to pick a good movie, and workout every time until the commercials. The next time that you bike, just continue the movie from where you stopped it (the VOD box saves it). That way you'll have a motivation to actually come back to the workout a few hours later, or a day afterwards.

There are not many good movies in Comcast's VOD, but there are some nice comedies. The problem with many of the comedies (especially those in the VOD) is that they are too stupid that they are boring.

Today I saw a movie that surprised me, and had an interesting bottom line.

I took small parts of the review from the New York Times, by By MANOHLA DARGIS, Published: December 21, 2005 that summarize the movie pretty well and that will help me explain you why it interested me while making me laugh.

Here it is -
The documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" wrested only tragedy from the corporate scandal of its title, but it probably should come as no great surprise that now Hollywood is looking to mine big laughs from the same. Hence the sort-of-new Jim Carrey vehicle "Fun With Dick and Jane," what may be the first post-Enron comedy. Based on the 1977 Me Generation laugh-in of the same title with Jane Fonda and George Segal, this comic redo doesn't so much update the plight of its fast-sinking upwardly mobile couple as dust off the story's central conceit: namely, the flip side of the American dream is a nightmare but, you know, also kind of funny.

BTW - the credits at the end of the movie are also cynic and funny. Remember to look at them.

My next phone (after modu :))

Got it from Yaron Segalov -
http://www.pomegranatephone.com/
(check release date to see when they’re really selling - I would recommend it to Israel. Click to understand.)

Hot, Flat, and Crowded/Thomas Friedman - a short review

If you preserve 'Yom Kipur' (a jewish holiday), you get to read A LOT!
Here is a very interesting and important issue that I would like to share with you.
I read about in the last edition of Scientific American, and in the following paragraphs I used materials from Garrett M. Graff’s article that was published on Wired - http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-09/pl_print.

In his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the multi-Pulitzer-winning journalist says everyone needs to accept that oil will never be cheap again and that wasteful, polluting technologies cannot be tolerated.
The last big innovation in energy production, he observes, was nuclear power half a century ago; since then the field has stagnated. "Do you know any industry in this country whose last major breakthrough was in 1955?" Friedman asks.
"The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone," he says. Likewise, the climate-destroying fossil-fuel age will end only if we invent our way out of it.
Our current efforts are not only inadequate; they're hopelessly haphazard and piecemeal. Friedman argues it'll take a coordinated, top-to-bottom approach, from the White House to corporations to consumers. "Without a systems approach, what do you end up with?" he asks. "Corn ethanol in Iowa."
"We need 100,000 people in 100,000 garages trying 100,000 things — in the hope that five of them break through."
He believes, and I agree, that in this new world, governments and companies that take the lead will find themselves with the single most valuable competitive advantage of our time.
To illustrate, Friedman tells the story of a Marine Corps general in Iraq who requested solar panels to power his bases. Asked why, he explained that he wanted to win his region by "out-greening al Qaeda." Instead of trucking in gas from Kuwait at $20 a gallon — money that fuels oppressive petro-dictatorships — in convoys that are vulnerable to roadside bombs, why not beat the insurgents by taking away their targets and their funding?
Coming out months before the presidential election, Crowded is sure to bigfoot its way into the campaign. "McCain and Obama come from the right side of this debate," Friedman says. "They have the right instincts, but neither is quite there yet. They haven't yet thought it through fully." The battle over "green," he believes, will define the early 21st century just as the battle over "red" (Communism) defined the last half of the 20th.

I surely hope so.

Book Recommendation: The Last Lecture

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

I got it in the airport on my way to Cabo (Mexico). You know that books in airports tend to be mainstream and not always interesting, so I looked for a pretty short book (150-200 short pages) that I'll be able to complete by the end of the trip. When I saw this small book I decided to check it since it was written by a professor from a known university who is also from computer science, so it may be interesting to me. Then I began to read the intro. and I was afraid that it will be a sad book, not very appropriate to read by the pool, and maybe also a "how to live your life" book, which usually I don't like very much.
But I took it because it was written by...., and it was the best option :)

I'm glad I bought it and read it! It did have a bit of all of the 3 "problems" in it, but together with that, it was a unique and a very inspiring book. Randy, the writer (he didn't really write the book, but this is because he didn't have the time...), was a person that may lived a short life, but has achieved so much in it, as if he'd lived a full life of two people. In the book he sincerely tells about every aspect of his life, and by his examples the reader can be inspired not only regarding one aspect of life, but regarding many of them - personal, family, love life, education, work, friendship, and parenthood.

Read the introduction, and see if it will fit you too -
http://www.hyperionbooks.com/viewer/exviewer_LL.htm

The lecture itself is here -


And here is another review -
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1826574,00.html

If you decide to read it then enjoy, and tell me what you think about it afterwards.

Anyway, remember - "You cannot change the cards you are dealt. Just how you play the hand." I trust you to play it right :)