Thursday, June 19, 2014

?או, מה זה שנפה - Not Biting The Hook

החלטתי, ביני לבין עצמי, שבלוגים זה פאסה. בשביל לכתוב משהו שכולם רואים ומגיבים יש את פייסוש, אינסטוש וחבריהם.
אבל, מאחר וכבר כתבתי פוסט כזה ארוך ומושקע בפייס, על נושא שכל כך קרוב לליבי, החלטתי לתת לו במה של כבוד כפוסט ראשון שלי בבלוג מאז 2012.

כתבתי בעבר על הנזירה הטיבטית שאני מעריך ואוהב כל כך. פמה צ'ודרון (Pema Chödrön) שמה.
אחד המונחים שלמדתי ממנה לפני שנים היה "שנפה" – Shenpa.
זו מילה בטיבטית שכל כך קשה לתרגם את מלוא המשמעות שלה, עד שפשוט משתמשים בה בשפת המקור, בשביל להעביר את מלוא המסר.
זה בערך כמו לנסות לתרגם לאמריקאי ממוצע את המונח "אחל'ה".
שיהיה לכם בהצלחה עם זה.

פמה כתבה את הקטע הבא באנגלית, ואני ניסיתי לתרגם אותו לעברית (בעזרתו הנדיבה של מר גוגל) ולמרות שקצת חטאתי מהטקסט המקורי, נראה לי שהרעיון הבסיסי נשמר.

נכון. זה ארוך. אבל המונח "שנפה" כל כך חשוב לי ומלווה אותי מאז שנתקלתי בו לראשונה, ומאז שזיהיתי אותו בחיי היומיום שלי, שלדעתי שווה להעמיק בהבנתו. כמובן, המאמרון הזה משמש כטיזר, כפתיחת דלת לכדי סדק צר למשהו הרבה יותר עמוק, שדורש עבודת מחקר פנימית, ואפילו זה לא יתחיל את העבודה האמיתית של השינוי המיוחל.

אזי, הנה זה בא:

NOT BITING THE HOOK - Pema Chödrön
בטיבטית יש מילה שמצביעה על השורש של תחושת התוקפנות, שהיא גם השורש של השתוקקות.
היא מצביעה על חוויה מוכרת, שהיא השורש של כל סכסוך, כל אכזריות, דיכוי, ותאוות-בצע. מילה זו היא Shenpa.
התרגום המקובל הוא "הִתְקַשְּׁרוּת", אך תרגום זה אינו מספיק בכדי להביע את מלוא המשמעות של המונח. אני חושבת על Shenpa כ"התמכרות." הגדרה נוספת, המשמשת את Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, היא "דחף"; הדחף שמאחורי המחשבות, המילים והמעשים שלנו; הדחף שמאחורי "אוהב" ו-"לא אוהב"  או "רוצה" ו-"לא רוצה".
הנה דוגמא מחיי היומיום: מישהו מעביר ביקורת עליך. הוא מותח ביקורת על העבודה שלך או על המראה שלך או הילד שלך. ברגעים שכאלו, מה זו התחושה הזו שאתה מרגיש? יש לה טעם מוכר. יש לה ריח מוכר. ברגע שתתחיל לשים לב לזה, תרגיש כאילו התחושה הזו קיימת מאז ומתמיד. התחושה הדביקה הזו היא Shenpa. והיא מגיעה יחד עם דחף מפתה מאוד לעשות משהו. מישהו אומר מילה לא נעימה ואתה יכול מיד לחוש תזוזה מבפנים. יש כיווץ כזה שמסתחרר במהירות ורוצה להאשים את האדם הזה, או רוצה נקמה או גורם לך להאשים את עצמך. אז אתה עונה בחזרה או עושה מעשה כתגובה. ה"כוח" שמאחורי הכיווץ, מאחורי הדחף, מאחורי קו הסיפור או הפעולה הוא Shenpa.

אתה יכול ממש להרגיש כשה-Shenpa מתרחשת. זו תחושה שניתן לזהות בקלות. אפילו כתם על הסוודר החדש שלך יכול להדליק אותך. מישהו מסתכל עליך בצורה מסוימת, או שאנחנו שומעים שיר מסוים, או שנכנסים לתוך חדר מסוים - ובום!
אנחנו מכורים לזה. 
זו תחושה שלא קל לתאר, אבל כזו שכולם מכירים היטב.

עכשיו, אם תופסים את Shenpa מוקדם מספיק, ניתן לעבוד על הדחף הזה. אתה צריך להכיר בכך שזה קורה ולפעול עם התחושה הזו של להיות מופעל, החוויה של דחף בלתי נשלט; החוויה של לרצות לזוז ולהגיב. זה כמו לחוש את הכמיהה לגרד גירוד, שבדרך כלל אנו מרגישים כאילו אי-אפשר להתגבר עליו.
אף על פי כן, אנחנו יכולים לתרגל סבלנות עם התחושה העצבנית הזו, עם הדחף הזה, ולהחזיק חזק את הכיסא שלנו.


הנה הקטע באנגלית, למי שמתעקש על המקור, או משום מה, מתקשה עם שפת הקויידש ;-)
NOT BITING THE HOOK - Pema Chödrön

In Tibetan there is a word that points to the root cause of aggression, the root cause also of craving. It points to a familiar experience that is at the root of all conflict, all cruelty, oppression, and greed. This word is shenpa. The usual translation is “attachment,” but this doesn’t adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as “getting hooked.” Another definition, used by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is the “charge”—the charge behind our thoughts and words and actions, the charge behind “like” and “don’t like.” Here’s an everyday example: Someone criticizes you. She criticizes your work or your appearance or your child. In moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste, a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever. That sticky feeling is shenpa. And it comes along with a very seductive urge to do something. Somebody says a harsh word and immediately you can feel a shift. There’s a tightening that rapidly spirals into mentally blaming this person, or wanting revenge or blaming yourself. Then you speak or act. The charge behind the tightening, behind the urge, behind the story line or action is shenpa.

You can actually feel shenpa happening. It’s a sensation that you can easily recognize. Even a spot on your new sweater can take you there. Someone looks at us in a certain way, or we hear a certain song, or walk into a certain room and boom. We’re hooked. It’s a quality of experience that’s not easy to describe but that everyone knows well.

Now, if you catch shenpa early enough, it’s very workable. You can acknowledge that it’s happening and abide with the experience of being triggered, the experience of urge, the experience of wanting to move. It’s like experiencing the yearning to scratch an itch, and generally we find it irresistible. Nevertheless, we can practice patience with that fidgety feeling and hold our seat.

אם אתם רוצים ללמוד עוד מפי פמה על שנפה, יש את המאמר הבא שלה:

יש גם את הספר שלה עם אותה הכותרת, כאן:

בהצלחה לכולנו!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

4 Is The New 5

Hi,

Back in 2000, when Ofer, Miron and I worked at MobiMate (AKA WorldMate these days) we stumbled upon an article that made us laugh, stating that by 2011, eleven years into the far-far future, people would work only 4 days a week.

That was my personal wishful thinking, a dream that made it worth the while to wait a decade or so...

Well, 2011 came and went by, and guess what? We are still working 5 days a week. (A bigger surprise is that Ofer, Miron and I are working together once again! This time at AT&T, but still doing amazing mobile apps together... I guess you can change the settings but why change a winning team? :-) )

Then, today, I got a link to the following article -
The Case for a Four-Day Work Week

It's the first sign of a (somewhat slim) chance that this could actually happen!
Yippee! :-)

Yet, reading it thoroughly, I am willing to bet it won't take another 11 years till we actually work 4 days a week.

There are two main reasons why I think this will happen soon(er):
  1. It's so damn hard to hire good employees these days, and then to keep them at your company for more than 18 months, that at some point someone (most probably a fresh startup with an edge of coolness) would make this shift in order to lure the best talents out there, and then, eventually, all others would have to align to it.
    Just like company cars, company phones (and now tablets), lots of vacation days and other perks that come natural to high-tech employees these days were once "bizarre" and "unheard-of".
  2. It simply make sense.
    I truly believe that folks working 4 days a week will be more productive in those 4 days.
    There was another survey I read many years ago, pointing to the fact that employees (at least in the UK where this survey was conducted, but also in the US) are actually hard at work for a small fraction of their day. The rest is "garbage time", including "important tasks" such as browsing the Web and running personal errands.
    So, if companies would manage to define and publish it wisely, I believe people will not work less, or be less productive, but the other way around! (Not to mention the direct saving to a company that doesn't have to pay all the extras that it take just to have us sitting in the office for 5 days... It's even good for the planet!)

After reading this article, I came across couple of other, even more ground-breaking ideas, both promoted by a small start-up called  Red Frog:
1. Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days - Now this is a revolutionary approach, and just by reading it (i.e. dreaming to actually implementing this...) it sounds so fresh and with such high potential, both for employees and for the company. Of course, it takes a lot of guts to be the first one to allow this (and a great HR skills to catch those that will match this kind of company profile)

2. Let Your Employees Pick Their Titles - This reminds me that when I saw Rovio's Angry Birds Product Manager Julien Fourgeaud, he presented himself as "Bad Piggy Bank Manager & Magician". Another small idea, with what I think is a big concept behind it. Flexibility, uniqueness, innovative & fun-to-come-to-work kind of concept. Are we seeing a small change in this direction out there?

Generally speaking, Red Frog looks like a great place to work at, and I'm already open for suggestions just by these two innovative endeavors (Well, moving to Chicago isn't an option, so not really... :-) ). Not surprisingly, they won the "Top Work Places - 2011" award, and "2011 Winner - Chicago Innovation Awards". Something in their young and unique DNA seems to be in the right place.

Another positive sign is due to another "crazy" prediction we read back in 2000, saying that by 2006, Microsoft would lead the PDA market, pushing Palm OS to the side... That also made us laugh like hell! Well, these days, who remembers what PDA or Palm OS is?... Times do change. I hope our working environment will do too.

What do you think? Would you become more productive or it's just a wishful thinking that would never take off?

G'night,
Offir

PS:
I sure hope 4 working days would allow me to post a new blog more than once a year... :-) And yes, I know what they say about excuses... :-)


- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

אסימונים – לא רק משחק מזל


שלום לכם,

הבטחתי לשלב כאן פוסטים "עסקיים" ו-"אישיים" (כאילו מדובר בשני "אני" שונים... ת'כלס, ההפרדה הזו היא כזו 1986...) אזי הנה פוסט שנוצר בעקבות אימייל לידידה קרובה שנמצאת רחוק רחוק...

הכל התחיל אתמול אחרי שבתי הגדולה סיני קמה על הצד הלא נכון, זה שתקוע בהילוך סרק והכל מתנגש עם העובדה שאבא באמת צריך מתישהו לשלב בין ה-"אישי" ל-"עסקי", ואפילו לסיני ונבו יש "דד-ליין" בגן. בימים שכאלו, מה לעשות, המצב מתדרדר מתישהו לתסכול, כעס, ריב, ובסופו של דבר לתחושת מועקה שמלווה אותי למשך היום.

עד אתמול, לא בדיוק התעמקתי במקורות הכביכול ברורים של תחושת המועקה שמלווה כזה ריב, וחשבתי שזה בטח קשור לריב עצמו, כריב, אירוע ששואב כוחות, שמוריד אותי למטה. עכשיו, אני נוטה לשייך את התחושה גם למונח חדש שנכנס ללקסיקון, לעובדה ש-"לקחתי אסימונים" מהבת הקטנה והאהובה שלי. שיש לי חוב לשלם לה.

הפסקה מתודית קטנה: הנה הוכחה לשילוב המושרש שבין ה-"אישי" ו-"עסקי" – החברים הכי טובים שלי, לדורותיהם, התחילו כחברים לעבודה. החל מתקופת העבודה המועדפת אחרי הצבא באילת, דרך כל משרדי ההיי-טק ה-"יבשים" שבהם עבדתי, וכמובן, גם במקום העבודה הנוכחי שלי. אלו חברים אמיתיים, כאלו שגם פוגשים "על אזרחי" בשעות הפנאי, וגם, שומו-שמיים, שמדברים איתם על החיים הפרטיים במשרד.

בהקשר לסיפור שלנו, מדובר בחבר טוב מהמשרד, שיש לנו מדיי פעם שיחות-הזדהות על איך התנהגו הקטנטנים שלנו הבוקר – על כל הטוב והרע (או יותר נכון, על כל הקל והקשה) שמשולב עמוק בתוך חוויית גידול הילדים.

כשהגעתי למשרד אתמול, עם תחושת המועקה הזו, חיכתה לי מצגת שהוא שלח תחת הכותרת "אסימוני משחק". בשביל להבין את המשך הפוסט הזה, אנא, קחו את הזמן ותביטו:

זה גרם לי לחשוב.
להרגיש רע על המעשה, ולחשוב.
וגם לקוות, שאוכל להשוות את הלקיחה הזאת, ולבסוף, גם איתגר אותי – האם אצליח במשימה הכל כך חשובה הזאת?

היום, להבדיל אלפי הבדלות מהחוויה של אתמול (ומן הסתם בהקשר ישיר אליה ואיך שהיא חוותה אותה), סיני קמה כמו פנתר, זינקה מהמיטה עדיין עם עיניים חצי עצומות, ירדה למטה, אחרי שכל הלילה לא הייתה שום "תקלה" ואפילו עשינו פיפי בשירותים כמו גדולים.

ואז, כשאבא הלך להתגלח, היא פתאום מופיעה לידי אחרי ששמה לבד: תחתונים, מכנסיים, גרביים, חולצה ונעליים!!!
אליפות של ילדה! (אפילו לא טעתה בכיוון של הנעליים... מרשים!)
אזי, אחרי שאתמול הייתה הלקיחה הגדולה, ואז הגיעה המצגת, מצאתי את עצמי מול הזדמנות פז להשלים לה כמה אסימונים חשובים, והפכתי את המאורע המדהים הזה להפנינג שלם:
1.    רקדנו ביחד בבית
2.    טלפנו באוטו לאמא, סבתא וסבא לספר להם בהתרגשות
3.    באנו לספר לגננת של נבו כמה סיני גדולה ובוגרת
4.    ואז, בגן של סיני – חגיגה! גם הגננת האהובה על סיני רקדה איתה, והביאה לה מדבקה (חשוב!) ואז הרמתי את סיני באמצע הגן והודעתי לככככווווווולללללםםם שסיני גדולה ובוגרת והתלבשה לחלוטין לבד!
(ואז, ילדון אחד שאל "גם תחתונים?" ואני אמרתי "בוודאי! גם תחתונים!" :) ) והייתה שמחה גדולה וכייפית ומלאת אסימונים לבת המדהימה שלי...

עכשיו, ידוע לי שמחר המצב יכול להתדרדר, כמו רכבת הרים שכזו, אבל נראה לי שהכיוון הכללי הוא כלפי מעלה.

השילוב הזה, של הלעמוד על שלי כשצריך, ולהרעיף אהבה כמה שרק אפשר, הזכיר לי משפט אחר שקראתי פעם – "הבריאות הנפשית של ילדינו היא לא רק כמה פעמים אמרנו להם שאנחנו אוהבים אותם, אלא זה נוסחה של: כמה פעמים אמרנו להם שאנחנו אוהבים אותם כפול כמה פעמים אמרנו להם 'לא'"...

אזי, ברור, יהיו עוד ימים כמו אתמול, שבשאיפה ילכו ויתמעטו אל מול ימים כמו היום, וכל עוד החבר'ה המדהימים שלנו סוגרים את היום בעודף אסימונים – אני מוכן לקחת את הכל!

בהצלחה לכולנו...
אופיר

נ.ב.
תודה שוב, לאיילת לוינרסקי, על המצגת החשובה הזו - קבלי מליון אסימיונים ממני גם כן


Sunday, November 28, 2010

PowerPoint [Prototyping] has the Power!


Hey,

I wanted to share with you a small gem I encountered a while ago, which made my life (err, work) much easier.

It's called MockApp, it's free (well, as the author calls it, it's a "tweetware", and now I transform it into a "blogware") and if you're designing apps for iPhone, iPad, or for any other platform for that matter, there's a good chance you're about to fall in love.

A small anecdote: in the army we had signs like "Solider, improve your appearance!", but when I was at Samsung HQ in Korea (a formidable army by all means, in terms of size, complexity and especially in its security level) there were signs like "PowerPoint has the Power!" (I wish I could take a picture of those signs, but all cameras where taken away from us, just like in a military camp that it is...)
Well, they were right on the money, and with MockApp you get a better idea of just how much.

MockApp allows you to design complex UI solutions with ease on your PC, and by running it on the iPhone, you get to feel not just the UI but the UX as well.

Well, some of you would say that paper prototyping is enough, or Visio wireframes could also do the trick, but as Dotan Saguy, the author of MockApp, said - "wireframes never get anyone excited, and static mockups suck..."
I with you on that, Dotan.

So, how does it work?
Quite simple.
1.       Download MockApp for PowerPoint / Keynote here
2.       Start designing your iPhone app using "actual" iPhone UI controls
3.       Within PowerPoint, add internal hyperlinks to elements, that will mimic the real flow of your app
4.       Save your PowerPoint as a PDF
5.       Launch GoodReader on your iPhone (I bought the app – it's sure worth the $2 by itself, though I think the free version might also do the trick)
6.       Run your MockApp "client" on the iPhone – eh voila!
7.       (…then you tweet / blog just how great MockApp is, of course)

These days I'm designing a rich communication client for AT&T on the iPhone and iPad, and though I can't share with you the MockApp I've prepared, trust me, it saved me lots of hours in figuring out how exactly I want the app to "feel like", which design "holes" I still need to cover, and as a result, saved the company countless hours of R&D / QA work - all without writing a single line of code.

We even used this mockup to perform an external usability test, which took place abroad, on actual iPhones. It proved us just how close to the "real thing" this MockApp gets (some examinees said they could easily relate to it, as if they were working on a real iPhone app) and how it allowed us to pinpoint the right UI that users appreciate. Eventually we fixed couple of UI issues found in the usability test, long before the R&D got to develop those screens.

Way to go MockApp!

You can learn more about MockApp on their site, see an example of a mockup on the PC, or watch the video below.
(Or here, here, here and here :-) )



Wishing you great prototyping,
Offir

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

We are all the same! (Yet, please create your own ringtone…)


Personalizing our digital world is a sure hit.

From making our own iGoogle pages, playing around with Windows' mouse cursors (people still do that??) to the cool and shiny skins for iPads – it's all about being *me* - standing out from the crowd.

Indeed.
Then come along that default mobile phone ringtone.

When I was at Comverse, the entire office hummed with Nokia's default tune. (I think it was across the entire country at the time!)
At Samsung, obviously it was Samsung's default tune.
And now at AT&T, where lots of people use iPhone, it's again a single-tune-to-all scenario.

Each time a phone rings – all faces gaze towards their own phone, only to realize they already had a missed call earlier, which they thought was not theirs.

As you know, there are about a dozen of native tunes for each of the above phones, but usually only 2-3 are worth the while, which is a good example of how similar we all are, basically.
Yet, I wanted to share with you an easy and free way to create your own iPhone (or with a tiny bit of more work – any phone) ringtone. Just follow these instructions and share your personalized "mobile-you" with the world:

1.       Open iTunes
2.       Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone (which is the best part of it all! :-) )
3.       Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start
4.       Write down the start and stop times of the clip
5.       Right-click the song and select "Get Info"
6.       Click the "Options" tab
7.       Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Start Time" in the minutes:seconds (i.e., 2:01) format
8.       Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Stop Time" (Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long)
9.       Click "OK"
10.   Right-click your song again and select "Convert Selection to AAC." Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.
11.   Right-click the ringtone and select "Delete" (Yes, yes – no worries – check out the next line…)
12.   Click on the "Keep Files" button
13.   Find the file. It's usually in your User folder under "Music > iTunes > iTunes Music" and under the band's name. It will have an extension of m4a.
14.   Rename the m4a extension of your file with m4r. You can either double-click slowly to rename your file; or select it and press F2, or right-click and select "Rename"
15.   Click "Yes" when the system warns you that you've changed the file type
16.   Double-click the ringtone file. iTunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library
17.   Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones

Thanks to eHow.com for this info! (Had to update it a bit, but it basically worked well as-is!)

Just as a teaser, here's my own iPhone ringtone, and chapeau to those who recognize this song in the first few seconds!

Take care,
Offir

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Brainstorm vs. Systematic Innovations – Henry Ford Style

Hi,

I’ll start by saying that lately, I find myself fascinated by famous people’s quotes. So, I’ve decided to integrate relevant quotes into this post. Most are coming from one Henry Ford, the father of modern mass production, and quite a fruitful inventor by himself.

Lots have been said in the praise of innovation, especially in these troubled times, with nearly 75% of executives consider it a top-strategic priority in 2010, so I’m not going to continue praising it more than just rephrasing Louis Armstrong on “If you have to ask why innovation is so important, you'll never know.”

While working at Samsung, we had several “innovative sessions” where you put 15-30 people inside a room, and don’t let them out till you have twice as much “innovative ideas” to start working with.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Even though sometimes good stuff surfaced from these sessions, most of the time I felt like it’s a waste of 15-30 x 2-4 working hours, and countless hours afterwards, trying to review all of those “interesting” ideas, and then explaining to each person why their ground-breaking feature didn’t make it to the final list.

I have couple of issues with this method:

1. The vast majority of these groups were engineers. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying engineers can’t be innovative – just ask the two Steve’s (Jobs and Woz) to see it’s clearly feasible – I’m just saying you got to have diversity in the audience, otherwise, it’s going to be more-of-the-same.

"I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done."

2. We were all working in the same place, knowing the “capabilities” / “constrains” and even confined to the “expected areas / buzzwords” of innovations that HQ in Seoul is currently keen on. I think we needed some sort of external guidance, preferably by a complete outsider, to make us forget all the stuff we thought we knew and start more open minded.

3. As an outcome of these – the ideas were based mostly on technical abilities, which tried to find real-world excuses problems to justify why they should become a product.

My bottom line out of these was – crowded brainstorming sessions doesn’t really work.

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it."
- Henry Ford

Apparently, brainstorming was introduced by Alex Osborn way back in 1948, when my mom, dad and country were born, and was proven in countless studies ever since to be the most overused and underperforming tool in business today.

So, the first question is – why do so many organizations still use it?
But, after the obvious answers, comes the more interesting one:
What are the alternatives?

"Don't find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain"
- Henry Ford

I found couple:

1. What I call “progressive brainstorming” - or basically, what most of us product managers forced to actually do, in the “real world”.
If you feel competent (which basically means there’s no-one else that would raise this precious glove) start with a list of ideas you like the most.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right."

After thinking it over, share it with a small group of trusted others, preferably including another product manager, marketing, R&D and even customer support experts. Then gradually bring-in more people and evolve the selected few ideas into something useful.

"Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice"
- Henry Ford


The logic behind this undoubtedly limited method is that, as product managers, we have very limited amount of free time to actually THINK, yet alone to promote and assist others to get to that “eureka” moment for us.


"An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous."
- Henry Ford

And after all, we are the experts of our product, customers, competitors, market, technology and so on, so we should have a rough idea on what might work. But, way more important – we know on what we really want to work – which is a key element in actually making the “idea” become a good “product”.


"Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them."
- Henry Ford
 
2. Then comes TRIZ and SIT, with their “structured innovation” way of thinking:

TRIZ provides tools and methods for use in problem formulation, system analysis and patterns of system evolution. TRIZ, in contrast to brainstorming, aims to create an algorithmic approach to invention.

Or simply put – it guides you to ask the right questions, which almost guarantee you’ll end up with valuable answers.
Yep. I’ve seen it in action.


"There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do."
- Henry Ford

The basics for TRIZ were conceived back in 1946, when my mom, dad and country were not quite there yet, but it clearly evolved and adapted to our modern times better than pure brainstorming.

I came to learn about TRIZ by working with SIT, an interesting and quite inspiring small Israeli company, that takes TRIZ and simplify its over-complicated methodologies, making it quicker to learn and much easier to apply in the “real world”.

"There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something."
 
The folks from SIT gave a great lecture at one of ILPMA’s monthly meetings, about their systematic innovative way of thinking, which was a fresh breeze to me (even though I’ve heard about some of these methods – seeing it in action is a completely different story), and later on, they assisted us tremendously in figuring out the who/what/how parts of the first ILPMA conference – “Think Product 2010”, which they actually took part in, and gave a stirring lecture about focusing on values instead of properties, titled “How to successfully sell your ideas?.”

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."
- Henry Ford

Among other benefits, this lecture was a proof for me that in order to initiate a change in mindset, and hopefully have some long-lasting influence out of it, a 45 minutes lecture is a good starting point. It’s a teaser, yes, which preferably should be part of a longer process of absorption, but just like a good quote can give you those small “hhmmm…” moments. Knowing there are alternatives, is a great place to be.

"Hidup adalah serangkaian pengalaman,
Setiap pengalaman membuat kita lebih besar, walau pun kita tidak menyadarinya."
- Henry Ford

Amen to that.
Offir



PS:
Henry Ford was also a well-known anti-Semitic and a pro-Nazi, and an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler. Furthermore, he initially refused to convert the Ford factories to assist in the war efforts during WW2, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The issue is, many other famous folks during the history were anti-Semitic and saw the Jews as the "source of all evil", including Thomas Alva Edison, Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells and, of course, Mel Gibson. There were also several well-known brands that cooperated with the Nazis, including BMW, Benz (Mercedes), Siemens, Bayer, Krupp, Volkswagen and Porsche to name a few.

I'm Jewish, but that doesn't stop me from watching Disney movies, reading Wells' books, driving a Porsche (yes please!) or using light bulbs, because it was related to anti-Semitic people. These people were good at what they did – they've left some added-value to this world. And yet, this does not take away that huge stain in their personal beliefs and thoughts.

I would like to summarize this issue with a great quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." Indeed.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Shreyas Doshi How To Get That Next Pm Job Svpma March 2010

I came across this great presentation on SlideShare.
It has some true funny moments, with good tips and "real-world" scenarios...
Worth the while for both novice and veteran product managers.