Whooah-Biz

Not mine but I thought it was interesting enough to publish.

A Professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see & asked the students

“How much do you think this glass weighs?”

‘50g!’ ….

‘100g!’ ….. ‘125g’ ..the students answered.

“I really don’t know unless I weigh it,” said the professor,“but, my question is: What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?”

‘Nothing’ …..the students said.

‘Ok what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?’ the professor asked.’ Your arm would begin to ache’ said one of the student.

“You’re right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?”

“Your arm could go numb, you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis & have to go to hospital for sure!” … ventured another student & all the students laughed … “Very good, But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” asked the professor.

‘No’…. Was the answer.

“Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?” The students were puzzled.

“What should I do now to come out of pain?” asked professor again.

‘Put the glass down!’ said one of the students.

“Exactly!” said the professor.

Life’s problems are something like this. Hold it for a few minutes in your head & they seem OK. Think of them for a long time & they begin to ache. Hold it even longer & they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything. It’s important to think of the challenges or problems in your life, but EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is to ‘PUT THEM DOWN’ at the end of every day before You go to sleep. That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh & strong & can handle any issue, any challenge that comes your way!

It gives away no secret to observe that lawyers have their own unique discipline and approach to the resolution of legal problems.This is a key skill for any one to learn in life as a method for how they deal with things. Theoretically when you have learned such a skill you can than apply it  to other areas of your life or things you may wish yet to learn.

Training one’s mind to approach problems in a coherent manner requires first one to be aware that they are not thinking as they are communicating. The first signs of this may be surprised looks on colleagues faces when you suggest something with no clear definition on how you are arrived there. Quite often pure thinkers struggle with either too many thoughts all at once and freeze at not being able to deal with the information overload. Or they have one thought and go into such depth that they lose the context of  the thought.

A good approach is to focus on thinking coherently and be aware that one has leanings to one side or the other. It is also a state of being that one exhibits in there every day activities and does than transcend to all there actions/work one carries out.

A very good example this is the latest development from Google called waves. It exhibits all the qualities of a coherent thought pattern and the result is an amazing product that will transform the way we communicate. Combining diffused, real time communication and online blogs/wiki all into one.  Google Presents a long presentation below about it, It is well worth it.

Only Geeks would come up with something like RSS. The really funny thing  is that nobody knows what it stands for, really simple, rich  site syndication. (http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=140) So what does that mean to the average person than?  Not a lot as you can imagine. Most people  have no idea about RSS and what it can do. So we have hundreds and thousands of Geeks all following what is going on the Internet through RSS feeds. You see if they’d call it something like, really simple sex, it would have got out of that geeky mould. One can  use  RSS to keep updated with information on your favourite websites (BBC, Blogs, Email, etc). Sounds complicated, it is not and of course you can compile it in whatever reader you like to read.

Unlike computers, which are incredible unpredictable that you never know what they are doing. Using RSS is easy. While it may take a long time visiting your favourite sites. Using a reader such as Google, there are a few others.  It will make your reading life a lot easier.  As a result you will be able to see all the content  your heart desires in one browser window.

So what does this icon look like and do? here is a video to show you.

Now that you have got your shiny new reader, and content streaming through. What is it that you may like to reflect upon.

Well some of my reflections from RSS goes something like this.

It seems that good old Gordy (British PM) is getting bushwhacked all over the place. Interestingly, I noticed last night on ‘Have I got news for you ‘(TV program) that Paul Merton was not laughing, maybe he is one of the few Brownites left . I do feel a certain amount of compassion for him but as John Wayne once said “you have got to go, when you have got to go”  Which kind of reminds me of an old school friend who did not befriend me on Facebook considering that I have not seen him for 20 years. It was hard to imagine what he could be concerned about. Maybe it was the fact that we use to call him ……. and he considers himself beyond such school humour. One does have to be careful what they write on the Internet as a magistrate found out this week due to twittering he lost his job in the courts. What is the problem he asked? all  the information is already in the public domain and published by the record division of the courts.

One can see there is a vast array of information to be gathered through RSS. From your Google e-mail through to your Facebook status. Pretty much everything. For the boys if you think of it as really simple sex and the for the girls as really simple shop. You should find it a lot easier than everything else that you may do on the computer.

You can subscribe to my feed here.

What is it that people do these days? If you are to believe the headlines twitter is all the rage. What defines a good twitter profile? What defines a good online profile? Is it the fact that one may have 2000 followers. Is it the fact they have almost twittered over 10,000 tweets. What characteristics would define someone that you follow?

If you’re a famous off-line celebrity say for example Schwarzenegger or Stephen Fry then without much ado it easy to be successful online. An example of this is Oprah Winfrey who set up an online Twitter profile only three days ago and already has over 10,000 followers. This is all probably very predictable.

What about from a personal point of view those of us who work every day and do not suffer from celebrity status. Is there really any benefit to using twitter. I am amazed at just how many companies and people use twitter try to sell me things most of them don’t understand the first thing about permission marketing. Can one really build a relationship in just 140 characters. It is not easy and like any relationship takes time and mutual interest.  To put it in perspective this idea I suggest that you are only as successful on-line as you are offline. Some of my best relationships that I have online also exist in the real world when I go to a restaurant or the cafe. I think that I am just staying in touch. As it is not always possible to see people on a regular basis.

What about the business development and customer care opportunities. Out of experience I will never follow anyone unless I have a particular interest. Ones that use a company name I will not follow. In my experience the company never offers or interacts in the way an individual would. There is always a feeling that they are protecting or selling something. A company that could break this mould could achieve a significant amount of followers and would have a real story to tell to the media. Plus this would certainly gain a lot of extra free publicity. It is conceivable that a company could employ a group of people just to respond to people’s questions on twitter.

If you are going to stay the distance it is about quality. It is better to have 10 followers that are really interested in what you got to say then 10,000 who are not. An example of this is the Velvet Underground whose first record only sold a couple of hundred copies. Their influence though is felt by just about every major rock band that has ever made music. Although comparatively they are still not that well known.

So in summing up if you are genuine and have a genuine interest  to interact. Then it is possible to build a quality network a word of warning though when I survey the number of people that follow me 90% are not  interested in a two-way conversation and significant less amount are operating highly queastionable/fruadelent activities.

It is truly fascinating Canon Law in relation to Blair’s comment about a change of the Catholic out dated doctrine on Gay rights. It can be done according Anthanasius, Benedictus PP. XVI. He may change the teaching of the Church at any time he pleases, as could any Pope. The immaculate conception and ascension are two doctrines that have since become dogmatic teaching. (Such changes can only be accomplished by the Holy).

Tony Blair’s recent conversion to Catholicism may seem surprising to many, but his faith has been the cornerstone of  his  adult creative  life. If one examines faith in more detail we can make much more sense of it. Religion in modern day society is regarded as being the cause of war over the past centuries, this doctrine or idea is largely correct. Why would people go to war and risk their life for an ideal or belief. Interpretation of these events that happened over 2000 years ago in Jerusalem is where  we must look. The problem lies arguable in the misuse of these ideas and knowledge. Religion is powerful and gives a small minority great power. There is no doubt that almost all modern day conflicts and animosity between differing groups are based upon religious idealism.

Biblical events are the founding of much of western culture they represent a learning and creativity that enables people to achieve their full potential. This creativity has often been taken out from the bible and used in many self empowering everyday courses and learning centers. Some people prefer to disconnect that creativity from religious group. We should note that difference between the physical events as recorded in the Bible from the interpretations of different religious groups. In this modern information age the every person is empowered to have direct access  to the  events that occurred. So that they can create a personal interpretation. This is important in understanding the way forward for faith in the 21st century.

The interpretation of events is still very much open, any church or religious group can change their by laws to interpret  the teachings correctly. Tony Blair from a legal perspective was certainly correct in stating that the church can and should change its doctrine to provide proper pastoral care to all people that seek it. It is logical that different people are drawn to different groups because of what they represent, this itself does not make that group correct. So here you have a balance between what you believe or would like to believe and what really happened. Interface foundations such as the one begun by Tony Blair represent a move forward in the right direction. The different groups can focus on the forgiveness and love that they understand from their teachings/biblical events.

In some respects modern day democracy within the church is highly questionable. They have not traditionally encouraged their members to think outside of the box. This will honestly have to change in the future with modern technology raising questions over a large number of subjects from cell cloning to sexuality. I don’t believe that any God would encourage people not to live up to their full potential. Church law is now in need of urgent reform to provide a full service that God and its people expect from it.

I have recently been following some very interesting creative technology not involving computers/programs or such like. This technology has been pioneered by Robert Fritz. Creating the life you want is easily possible according to Robert Fritz. I am sure that many of us are familiar with the idea that what we think about we end up creating. This can apply to positive as well as negative thoughts. I was recently listening to a seminar given by Mr Fritz. Where he talked about a number of subjects. He started off by talking about how the first thing that dictators do is to ban the arts. This easily understandable as the arts represent creativity and by banning them a dictator can keep control. Another of his ideas is structural tension and we as human beings seek to resolve discrepancies in our life. Robert Fritz explains this phenomena with an example of what we see on the news. The newscaster will tell us the news and then seek to explain  it changing the news as more facts come to light. This demonstrates clearly how we like to avoid discrepancies. We want to know where we are and what we are doing. According to Robert Fritz if the newscaster was being totally honest they would say here’s the news and we have no idea how it happened.

One of the many concepts that Robert Fritz talks about is the inner and outer of self and how we experience life on these two levels. Our outside experience of life can be very different from the inside one. We can be experiencing difficulty in our life and yet be surrounded by peace and tranquillity. The outside experience is dictated by events going on in the world. The inside experience we can determine for ourselves. By focusing on things that are truly important to us we create the kind of experience and world that we would like to live in. As we become familiar with these concepts and the creative process in the  inside world it is safe to assume that that experience will permeate to our outside world.

I have been a familiar with the work of Robert Fritz for over 20 years now. Starting off with his DMA technology. I do recommend to read some of his books and familiarise yourself with his work.

I came across a really interesting interview today with Reputation management expert Andy Beal which summed up simply how to make the most of online social media. I do not think I could say it better. It has so many benefits establishing a social media policy.

“When a company creates an interactive online profile, it’s effectively telling its stakeholders -customers, investors, employees, etc- that it cares about the community and wants to be a part of the conversation. When an online reputation crisis hits, companies that have an social media profile are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and more likely to be able to respond quickly, within that channel.

I advise my clients to look for the “centres of influence.” Where are their stakeholders hanging-out online? When you understand the types of social media your stakeholders are using -maybe they prefer blogs over forums -you’ll increase your chances of successfully engaging them.”

Social media channels that you may find useful for establishing a thriving social network, depending on your market and your niche, include:

FaceBook

MySpace

Twitter

Plurk

FriendFeed

Linkedkin

What networks would you add to this? Which ones do you enjoy the most?