Life as a Knowledge Manager

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Open your Portal of Life and find the Creative Genius

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 11, 2009 in Life. 0 Comments

Here is a synopsys of Elizabeth Gilbert’s narration of “Creative Genius” in her 20 minutes speech @ ted.com

A different way to think about Creative Genius - By Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth a very prominent book writer discusses the hidden secret behind her success which has connections with the ancient Greek & Roman civilizations.

Best Seller. Now What? If you have succeeded at first, everyone expects you to be afraid of the work that you have previously accomplished. Will you be able to surpass the previous success?
Creative people are sometimes mentally unstable with magnificient young minds
Fear of Genius: Your best performance is behind you.
Genius and Daemons: Greece believed creativity came from a divine spirit called “Daemon”. Romans believed a magical entity who would invisibly assist an artist and shape the work (called Genius).
Being & Having Genius: Being a Genius is a mistake because it is too much responsibility for a single entity. Having Genius makes you have an imaginary spirit which helps you rub a fairy juice on your projects.
Letting Genius Catch you: Don’t try to find Genius, let the Genius find you. Some ideas come to you from other uncontrolled impulses. Genius is some moment which could be called as “This is it”, “Time would stop”, “Everything would be aligned”, “You are light from within”, “Magic”, “Glimpse of God”. Open the portal of your life and let yourself into a totally different level where you have the most brilliant moments which would be wonderous.
What are you to do for the rest of your life?: It is not always that the most extraordinary aspects of your life came from you. You have been loaned the extraordinary aspects of your being from an unimaginable source to be passed on. Share the knowledge.
Do your job: Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything change what you do and have the stubberness to keep showing up.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/453

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Matilda - Poem of the Week

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 10, 2009 in Life and Literature. 0 Comments

MATILDA

by: Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

WHO TOLD LIES, AND WAS BURNED TO DEATH

MATILDA told such Dreadful Lies,

It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;

Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,

Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,

Attempted to Believe Matilda:

The effort very nearly killed her,

And would have done so, had not She

Discovered this Infirmity.

For once, towards the Close of Day,

Matilda, growing tired of play,

And finding she was left alone,

Went tiptoe to the Telephone

And summoned the Immediate Aid

Of London’s Noble Fire-Brigade.

Within an hour the Gallant Band

Were pouring in on every hand,

From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.

With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,

They galloped, roaring through the Town,

‘Matilda’s House is Burning Down!’

Inspired by British Cheers and Loud

Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,

They ran their ladders through a score

Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;

And took Peculiar Pains to Souse

The Pictures up and down the House,

Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded

In showing them they were not needed;

And even then she had to pay

To get the Men to go away!

It happened that a few Weeks later

Her Aunt was off to the Theatre

To see that Interesting Play

The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.

She had refused to take her Niece

To hear this Entertaining Piece:

A Deprivation Just and Wise

To Punish her for Telling Lies.

That Night a Fire did break out–

You should have heard Matilda Shout!

You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,

And throw the window up and call

To People passing in the Street–

(The rapidly increasing Heat

Encouraging her to obtain

Their confidence) — but all in vain!

For every time she shouted ‘Fire!’

They only answered ‘Little Liar!’

And therefore when her Aunt returned,

Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

“Matilda” is reprinted from Cautionary Tales. Hilaire Belloc. 1907.

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Overshare - the 2008 Word of the Year

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 7, 2009 in Life, Management and Technology. 0 Comments

Information is always overwhelming. However when information is turned into knowledge it is a gift. With my role as a Knowledge Manager, I feel it is important for people to understand when information is “Overshared”. Is this a good thing?

The 2008 word of the year is both a noun and a verb: overshare. It basically means it is when a person gives you more information than you want or need to know.

I believe in information transpancy, sharing of knowledge and accepting the fact that being accessible to others makes life simpler.

Sharing of information can be classified into:

Personal
Work Related
Social
Other

One must group his friends and collegues into various catagories. I have choosen to share my information to various groups (social networking) in the following fashion:

Personal:
1. Website: www.nainil.com
2. Blog: www.nainil.com/blog
Friends:
1. Facebook (id: nainil)
  http://www.facebook.com/people/Nainil-Chheda/630638930
2. Orkut (id: nainil@gmail.com)
Work Related:
1. LinkedIn (id: nainil)
  www.linkedin.com/in/nainil
2. Blog
  www.nainil.com/blog
Social Networking:
1. Twitter (id: nainil)

The level of discrete information that I share about myself is limited to the nature of the service and to the level of information I am willing to disclose about myself.

On my Website: I have information related to my areas of interest, my research activities, my vision, my resume and some images that I cherish.

On my Blog: I record my experiences with technology, quality control, policies, management as well as topics such as game theory and geological sediments.

On my Twitter profile: I update the various articles I read, videos I watch and document anything which helps me understand a concept/theme .

Never have I felt that I overshare my information. I tend to give data which is precise and to the point.

Information if left idle is not of any value. When we put our thoughts to process information we gather knowledge. Being a Knowledge Manager, I have learned to value the boundaries of information. Only some can be shared while other must be cherished by a limited group of members.

With an increase in the level of understanding, individuality and personification of data, “Overshare” is the term which needs to be catered to the market.

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Giving Credit to the Right People

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 5, 2009 in Life, Management and Organization. 0 Comments

I work in a company with a varied set of team members. We depend on each other to make the right choices and deliver the right services. We all try to deliver products, services and processes to our team members and the clients. Yet, I often ask myself “Is there any tangible product which comes out of my work?”.

Here’s the way I think about my work:

* I am a “Facilitator”. I help in getting people the right correct answers. It does not mean I am always the one who is giving these answers.
* I am a “Shovel Supplier”. I supply the tools and services that others need to make their lives easier.

Every day I receive emails, phone calls and have people come to my desk asking for all sort of answers. I might know a few of these answers as I might be involved in the project. However most of the times I am asked for the right direction. I am asked if I can point them to the right person who can do the job. I am asked if I can get an answer for the questions they have.

While looking for an answer to a question, I tend to involve various other team members. Many a times they give me an answer which is complete. I inturn transfer the answer to the team member who requested it. So, I diligently perform my duties, find the answers and convey the same to the team member who has requested the same.

Does this mean:

* I did all the hard work to get the answer?
* I have the answer to every question?
* I am the one to be praised and thanked?

The answer is No. I believe, in an ethical business environment where all the members involved while providing a solution should be respectfully thanked. The effort is a group effort and the right person deserves the credit. I always try to remember what our old folks used to teach us “It’s always good to give than to receive”.

While on a project, I make sure that I broadcast the efforts of the other team members who helped me find the answer to the main requesting party .This leads into a “Win-Win” situation. It keeps the requestor informed and the efforts put in by the other team member are also brought to light which acts as a motivational factor.

This sure does not mean that I (the facilitator) do not deserve a part of the credit. However, considering the nature of my job I choose to do the right thing and take credit only for the things that I deserve.

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Deleting Data does not Purge Data

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 3, 2009 in Technology. 0 Comments

I have always been an active proponent of disposing replacement or obsolete technology products in a regulated fashion. Of late, I have been promoting the notion of “Deleting Data does not Purge Data“.

It has been assumed by many that, simply “deleting” the files on a system gets rid of the contents on the drive. This is not the case as there is a very high possibility that this information will most likely still be recoverable.

This compromises the privacy of your data which could include passwords, personal information, classified documents from work etc. The classified nature of data could lead to legal consequences.

As per a recent article (Dumped hard drives tell all), most people tend to transfer desktops or laptops without disposing the data.

113 of 200 drives purchased on eBay as part of a security vendor’s study on disk sanitization still contained recoverable data, including data that in some cases appeared to be confidential or quite personal in nature.

We deal with highly classified data which might some times include data which could be confidential or quite personal in nature. Many a times our team downloads client database (with consent) over a secure connection. This data might contain Electronic Patient Health Information. This data must be protected from unauthorized disclosure in compliance with the requirements of HIPAA and other applicable state and federal privacy regulations.

When an employee terminates the employment usually the desktop or laptop is transferred to another person, department, or disposed of as surplus property. While this being done it is required to mandate “Disk Sanitization”.

There are two options to Sanitize a Disk:

Wipe or OverWrite the disk using a software utility
Physically Destroy the hard disk by melting, shredding etc.

Types of Secure Deletion Standards:

Simple Overwrite (1 pass)
Department of Defense - DoD 5220.22-M ( 3 pass)
NSA (7 passes)
Gutmann (35 passes)

To successfully wipe a hard drive one must at least look for a utility which meets the DoD 5220.22-M ( 3 pass).

Some Open Source Products which perform software disk wiping include:

Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ (free)
DBAN: Darik’s Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/ (free)

Aging compute hard drives and other storage media are always at a risk for compromising data. Anyone making any claims that the potential costs associated with aging computer hardware is limited has not done the research.

I can only hope that everyone learns from experience that using appropriate data destruction mechanisms will prove a real bargain in the long run!

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A Follower of the KISS Principle

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 2, 2009 in Life, Management, Organization and Technology. 0 Comments

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” - Albert Einstein

During my Masters in Information Systems at the Fox School of Business @ Temple University, I was introduced to “Strategic Process Management” and “User Interactive Site Design”. The first concept taught was to Keep it Sweet and Simple (K.I.S.S).

With 12 years of Web Application Development experience, I have had the opportunity to look at both:

Processes which are complicated
User Interfaces which do not make sense

Many a times, we try to bring an “Open Forum” approach into our organization. This could lead to:

Multiple Members Contributing to a Project (too many cooks spoil the broth)
Complicating the project in the early stages of formation/development
Everyone has a request to meet their needs. This could over burden the project.

The chain of thought is to make life easier and simpler for both the developers and clients. Design simplicity should be a key goal and any unnecessary complexities should be avoided.

Product Design

Here is a great link on “What is Simple Design“. It shares information about: Agile Development, YAGNI - You Aren’t Gonna Need It; Design Patterns, Code Smells, Simple Design and Test Driven Development (TDD), Once-And-Only-Once, Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY), Communication, Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), Open Closed Principle (OCP), Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP), Interface Segregation Principle (ISP), Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP), Tell Don’t Ask, The Law of Demeter, Triangulate, Influence from Functional Programming, Tests don’t lie and Prototyping.

With everything that I try to manage, I tend to Keep it Simple. This allows me to focus on other core aspects of business which can lead to increase in productivity and sales. Being a follower of the KISS Principle makes my activities at Work and Life much enjoyable and productive.

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It’s not Personal. Its Business!

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 31, 2009 in Life, Management and Organization. 0 Comments

Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business. — The Godfather (1972)

In an office environment, there are often times when :

1. It is difficult to negotiate with a client/colleague
2. Someone gets fired
3. Emotions (sometimes excitement, anger etc.) are spilled out

There is nothing personal when it comes to business. In an environment where accountability and ownership fail, people sometimes run into a brick wall. The only recourse is to find another way around it and gain insight on how impersonal business can be.

In many instances, when a mistake is pointed out :

The person gets all worked up;
The person gets defensive;
There is a cold-war situation in the environment;
Things are not taken in a positive fashion;
Negative work environment only creates a destructive pattern to erode the success. “Do I loose a friend when he/she points out my mistakes? How can I trust the person? Do I give up a friend because of a conflict of interest at work?” — We are all victims of such thinking.

An escalated matter (to the management) is sometimes required to get things done. Yet if this option is chosen all the time you will not be ale to earn the respect and get things done in the future.

To avoid such thoughts here are some tips:

Personal life situations should not affect your business decisions.
Remember that business is an impersonal entity.
Accept your mistakes and be honest.
Look at the big picture and think about the company first.
Find a recourse of action to avoid business matters affecting your personal life.

Remember: It’s not personal. It’s Business!

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Upon Westminster Bridge - by William Wordsworth

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 30, 2009 in Literature. 0 Comments

Upon Westminster Bridge - by William Wordsworth

Sept. 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

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Patient Privacy - A Reality

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 30, 2009 in Health Care. 0 Comments

I have always respected privacy of an individual. Recently, my respect towards patient privacy and consent has drawn concerns in my mind on the current state of health care.

The privacy of an ordinary person is as important as the one of a celebrity or the CEO of a major public company. Recently “Shares of Apple Inc. fell on account of health concerns about their CEO - Steve Jobs“. This news, caused a trickle down effect where the company’s shares took a hit and fell 5.7%. Causing the market to react to a negative imbalance.

The effects of denial to medical privacy include but are not limited to the following:

Job Loss
Discrimination
Credit Denial
Fear
Loss for Stakeholders

CHCF Consumer Privacy Health Survey (2005) shows that 67% of Americans are concerned about the privacy of their personal medical records.

In my opinion patient privacy is the most important factor for a patient-doctor relationship. To protect the same we must:

Invest in technologies which build a secure environment to protect patient data
Educate the team on HIPAA and patient privacy
Obtain Consent while using/sharing patient data
Authenticate the receiver/observer of patient data
Limit secondary use of patient data
Observe strict policies while storing patient data
Define rules for non-tolerance
Mandate compliance with security practices
Define framework for Data integrity, Safeguards and Accountability
Follow standards and certifications to maintain sanity levels in protecting patient privacy

The economic stimulus bill in the Obama Administration (244 188) includes $20 billion to promote health IT. This bill includes:

A ban on sale of protected health information in electronic medical records and limitations on marketing

Audit trails of all electronic health record transactions, encryption requirements, and rights to electronic copies of our records

Requires the Secretary to revisit and narrow the definition of “health care operations”

Improved enforcement provisions such as breach notification, required periodic audits, state attorneys general enforcement, a compensation scheme for privacy victims and applying security and privacy provisions and penalties to business associates

Ensuring taxpayer dollars go only to funding systems that are capable of segmenting specific and sensitive information

Funding for consumer advocacy groups and not for profit entities to participate in the regulatory process.

- derived from PatientPrivacyRights.org Newsletter: Privacy in the Stimulus?, Dated: Jan 29, 2009

This bill if passed by the Senate will ensure consumers interest ahead of industry profits. With proper technological utilization, policy definition and process implementation the Patient Privacy can now become a reality.

I vote for Patient Privacy! Do you?

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Self Motivation

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 23, 2009 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

I am a big fan of Peter Drucker (Management Guru). At age 13, his teacher once asked him “What do you want to be remembered for?”. He did not have an answer then. His teacher said, “I didn’t expect you to be able to answer it. But if you still can’t answer it by the time you’re fifty, you will have wasted your life.”

Since my high school I have believed that “The person with the most responsibility for an individual’s development is the person himself”. While in high-school my I had an attention span of a moth. I would seldom concentrate on what the teacher was teaching.

I believe everything which I have learned (till date) is a result of three things:

Observation
Self Motivation
An Analytical Mind

What motivates me?

Being Busy: I like it when I am busy;
Empowerment: I like it when I am given the authority and the empowerment to do my job;
Work Environment: I like it when there is an honest work environment;
Variation: If I am given the same task/activity I feel bored. I need variation. After coming to eClinicalWorks I have already switched 5 main roles from being a “Trainer to Installer to Developer to Network Manager to being a Product Manager (Research)”;
Recognition: I am motivated if I am recognized for my hard-work;
Communication: I like it when there is a constant and consistent communication with and from the management;

All the above points induce me to renew myself, because it makes me see myself as a different person - the person I can become. Self-motivation can go only so far and it needs to be constantly reinforced by rewards from your colleagues and management.

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It’s OK to say NO

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 22, 2009 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

In my professional experience:

I did not always have a Team to work with;
I did not always have a Team Lead to report to.

Most of the time, I used to work on Individual Projects assigned to me by the Management. Currently I belong to two teams (Product Management and the Network Team) and I still spend most of my time working on various Individual Projects.

In an environment where I have two team leads and multiple management members to report to, it is often difficult to make everyone realize the current items you are working on.

This results into:

Difficulty in prioritizing
Uncontrolled assignment of work (Work load increases)
Wrong judgment in terms of assigning the correct work to the correct people.

With my 16 years of experience, one of the most important skills I have developed is to judge when it is right to say “No” to an assigned task. It is not always the correct accept all the projects which have been assigned to you. While your team lead does make the best judgment in assigning the task, it is also your responsibility to evaluate your skill set and your current list of priorities to accept the task.

Based on my experience I use a starter kit of questions to evaluate when it’s OK to say NO to an assigned project:

Do I have the bandwidth to take another project?
Do I have the right skill set?
Based on my experience, will this project succeed? Does this project need more planning?

There have been instances when I have personally met the management team and/or the team lead, explained them my skill set and I have provided them with a valid reason as to why I would not be able to take the assigned project. It should be noted that saying “No” to a senior management is not the easiest of the tasks. You need the courage and the motivation to go to the team lead and explain them the same.

By this exercise, the management/team lead is well informed in advance about my thoughts. They then have the time to make the right decision and assign the project/task to another team member. I can now concentrate on my existing projects and complete them on time without any other distractions which might affect my quality of work. The team leads are confident in you as you have given them your honest opinion and prevented any last minute confrontation of backing out of the project.

By learning to say ‘no’ to projects that don’t fit your targeted strategy, you’ll often end up with more time and energy to say ‘yes’ when it really counts.

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Agile Development Methodologies 101

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 21, 2009 in Technology. 0 Comments

I have a total of 16 years of Corporate Experience which can be summarized as:

12 Years in IT (Development + Support)
4 Years in Health Care IT (Product Management + Research + Development)

In my 16 years of experience, I have had the opportunity to work in companies which are Technology Intensive and have adopted “Agile Development” as their development framework.

Agile development is a method of constructing software by:

delegating and trusting people,
acknowledging change as a standard, and
promoting constant feedback

Agile Team follows practices that keep it focused on customer needs

Principles behind Agile Development:

Acknowledge Change as A Standard
Promote Constant Feedback
Tailored Approach
Requirements Change
Continuous Attention is Required
Light on Documentation
Small Teams
Isolated Approach
Face To Face Communication
Self Organizing

There are several methodologies towards Agile Development. The most prominent ones include:

Extreme Programming (XP)
Scrum
Agile Unified Process (AUP)
Feature Driven Development (FDD)
Lean Software Development
Crystal
Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

Agile development, to conclude is a journey which helps creating its own path by following the methodologies which suite best to the organizations development team and principles.

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Obama Inauguration - The Change We Need - Who Moved My Cheese?

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 20, 2009 in Life, Management, Organization and Politics. 0 Comments

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek - President Barack Obama (Change.gov)

Today, Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered on Washington’s national mall for the inauguration of Barack Obama as America’s 44th president. Today is a day in History, where change will be the focus of the new presidency era.

At my previous experience as a “Customer Service Representative” at DirectI, my lead (Bhavin Turakhia) had a unique way of motivating his team. Even with his busy schedule, he used to always boast about his ability to complete any given book in 2 weeks.

Every year he used to:

Organize education seminars for employees
Share his knowledge
Encourage employees to read books
Give us a Gift (during mid-year review)

This was no ordinary gift. Even though in monetary terms the gift was only worth Rs. 145 (US $4.5) it was more valuable than any other incentives I have ever received. It was a book called “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Dr. Spencer Johnson (Indian Edition).

Who Moved My Cheese? tells the story of two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two “little people” (Hem and Haw) trapped in a maze. Cheese is a metaphor for whatever you want in your life. For the mice, it’s cheese. For the “people” it could be success, happiness, or financial security.

About this book :

It is a very short book about Change (about 100 pages).
Can be completed in less than an hour. (Large Font, Lots of White Spaces)
It is written in a very simple English (for all ages)
“Who Moved My Cheese?” has been used in hundreds of companies to demonstrate to employees what the “right” attitude should be. Go along with change. Adapt. Be flexible.
Everyone should read this!

It Teaches:

Change Happens
Anticipate Change
Monitor Change
Adapt To Change Quickly
Change
Enjoy Change !
Be Ready To Change Quickly & Enjoy It Again.

Quick Preview - PowerPoint:

Change doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. - President Barack Obama

Are you ready to change the world? I am committed to do my part and looking forward to it!

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HHS Secretary-designate Tom Daschle Travels To Community Health Care (Stay Healthy to Lower Cost of Care is the Message)

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 19, 2009 in Health Care. 0 Comments

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Tom Daschle as the Secretary-designate for Health and Human Services. He has been traveling to various community health care centers to understand the current situation of health care which will help him formulate a plan to fight the crisis faced by the patients and the care management industry.

Secretary-designate Tom Daschle discussed troubled areas in Health Care:

Increasing Cost of Drugs
Insurance Cost
Cost of Health Care Services
Cost of trying to get Preventative Care
Out of Pocket Cost

He also discussed that the first step the government should take is to educate people on the importance of being healthy. Encouraging the general public to stay healthy will make a difference to the ever increasing cost of care.

The most important discussion was the fact that even though the current Health care System is not perfect:

“People are ready to overcome the challenges”

Tom Daschle ended his discussion with a quote by Nelson Mandela

“Many things seem impossible untill they are done”

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Greed is Good

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 16, 2009 in Life. 0 Comments

I think one of the most misunderstood things about business is that people are greedy and selfish. Greed acts as a motivational factor in choosing the best at the best price.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind. - Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987).

At Work:

Do we stop selling? No.
Do we stop competing? No.
Do we stop growing and expanding our network? No.

In personal life (I believe) we are all greedy. We want the fame and the fortune; we want to move to a higher direction in life and we want to be the only one who is better at doing things.

Balancing life by being greedy and by being content is very important. Being content / satisfied helps in fulfilling life and Greed helps us in enriching life.

“At the end of the day, anybody who thinks there’s a reward for nothing, ends up losing.” - Kerry Stokes.

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Life as a Knowledge Manager

Archive

Open your Portal of Life and find the Creative Genius

Matilda - Poem of the Week

Giving Credit to the Right People

Deleting Data does not Purge Data

A Follower of the KISS Principle

It’s not Personal. Its Business!

Upon Westminster Bridge - by William Wordsworth

Self Motivation

It’s OK to say NO

Agile Development Methodologies 101

Obama Inauguration - The Change We Need - Who Moved My Cheese?

HHS Secretary-designate Tom Daschle Travels To Community Health Care (Stay Healthy to Lower Cost of Care is the Message)

Greed is Good

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