Tamara Loew - The Ultimate Transformation

Going from 10 years of drugs and dealing to a motivational speaker who hobnobs with successful celebs and world leaders. How's that for a comeback?

Question is - how did she do it? The short answer is she started with helping those she understood best - people with her problem. First, she got motivated. Rest is H.

Adler - The Key to Business Success

1) Get a group of motivated, team-oriented people

2) Have a clear vision of where you're going.

I would add Jack's 2c : Establish a fair system - In a fair system, everyone knows where she stands and what she can do to improve. Metrics are the key. When you're in school, you have your GPA. But, how do you measure social success? What is a person's social GPA? Then, after school, what is your GPA? Salary? Maybe that's why recruiters want to know what your salary is.

Another good quote from Lou (paraphrasing someone else) : Work on your department, not in it. That's management - game plan and team building is management. How many times have you seen this being violated? The manager has to get in the lab and show the guy how to do something? Coaching is one thing - you have a training session where you point out common mistakes and ways to work smarter. Fixing problems on a live project is not coaching and it's not managing.

Lou Adler - Hire With Your Gut

Team skills, organizational ability, commitment, technical competence. Winners have a consistent track record of success.

There is nothing more important to your success than hiring great people. Even if you're not a manager, "hiring" is winning people over to your side, getting them to join your team.

Hire smart, or manage tough. I've never met anybody who could manage tough. No matter how hard you try, you can never atone for a weak hiring decision. A weak candidate rarely becomes a great employee, no matter how much you hope for improvement or how hard you try to train the person.

Reminds you of Jim Collins in "Good to Great" - the right people don't need to be managed. Guided, led, yes, managed - no. You need to get the right people on the bus first. Else, nothing matters.

Everyone Working All the Time

Eliyahu Goldratt : A plant in which everyone is working all the time is very inefficient.
(The Goal - A novel about the theory of constraints)

"A" Players, and B and C Players

We will see more hiring in 2010 of "A" players, but the jury is still out on when hiring will improve in great numbers and companies will consider hiring B and C players to round out their teams. You can't only have teams of superstars as the work that needs to be done in many cases does not warrant being done by high achievers. 

Become What You Were Born to Be - Brian Souza

My latest audiobook, and it's a good one.

Analyze your life patterns.
Develop a burning desire for something or to get away from something.
Inspirations : Slavimir Rawicz (internet accounts are controversial, but Souza makes him sound like a hero. Definitely, the story is a bit on the fantastic side. He did on land what Capt. Bligh did on water - I guess), Momma Walker - first self-made millionairess in the US, Franklin Chang-Diaz (first Costa-Rican space shuttle astronaut). Good stuff, in general.

Souza spent tens of $k on seminars after he quit his corporate ladder job to find out who he was.

Installing Perl Modules as Non-Root : If You're Not in bash

What if you're in csh? (to Mr. X who wrote : http://linuxgazette.net/139/okopnik.html )


setenv MANPATH ${MANPATH}:~/perl_modules/man

if ( $?PERL5LIB  ) then
        # PERL5LIB not previously defined, so set it..
        setenv PERL5LIB ${PERL5LIB}:~/perl_modules
else 
        setenv PERL5LIB ~/perl_modules
endif

verify with 

perl -wle'print for grep /myperl/, @INC'

That's a bit of guru-level perl right there. Deadly one! (not mine:)

Autohotkey Eases Command Prompt Navigation

You're looking at a folder with Windows Explorer. Can you click in the path (which means windows will now select it) and hit a hotkey combo to open a Command Prompt window ready at that path?

With Autohotkey, yes.

(without AHK, it's this incredibly complex procedure)

But, we're saved :

Windows 2K :

#c::
Send ^c ; copy the text
CoordMode, Mouse, Relative
Run cmd.exe
WinWaitActive,cmd,,0.5
Send cd{Space}
Click right 110,70
Send {Enter}
CoordMode, Mouse
Return

Windows XP :

#c::
Send ^c ; copy the text
CoordMode, Mouse, Relative
Run cmd.exe
WinWaitActive,cmd,,0.5
Send cd{Space}
Click right 110,70
Send {Down}{Down}{Down}
Send {Enter}{Enter}
CoordMode, Mouse
Return

It's not pretty:) but it works. Sure, there's more than one way to do it.

MyFav : AHK : Suspend

That's a really useful hotkey - suspend all the other hotkeys.

If you're using the Easy Window Drag (KDE Style) script, be sure to put this line after the "CoordMode, Mouse" segment, or you'll see some funny stuff.

All you need is

^!Rbutton::Suspend

Just one small line for you, one giant leap for your productivity. Choose any other key combo you like - I picked CTRL-ALT-RIGHTMOUSE here.

Another one to consider :

#c::Run calc.exe

See, that's the smart way to launch the calculator when you need it. Cavemen go through the Start menu, to accessories, then whatever. Same for Paint. All you have to do is launch the task manager and find out what the name of the program is - you usually can find it because it'll be named meaningfully.

C.a.r.e.s.s. the Art of Listening

Day eight of the mastery course.

C : concentrate
a : acknowledge
r : respond
e : emotional control - don't get your buttons pushed and tune out
s : sensing the non-verbals - vocal and visual
s : structure - paying attention to the verbal