Reflections of a mystic

Everything new

After long am inspired to share and express. I just wanted to change everything. So came and changed the blog design, changed blog name and also added to the purpose of this Blog.

So you might find my regular posts that i will be starting shortly.

Till then. Take care.

Love and light,

Raj

Hey, try out Flock

Hello,I'm emailing you about Flock. I'm now using Flock as my default browser, and I love what it's done for my whole Web experience. Flock is a social web browser that uniquely pulls together the people, photos, videos and websites I care about. Check it out, I think you're really going to like it.You can download it for free at http://www.flock.com/invited/1230037335 Enjoy it!

Photography Workshop on 24th -25th May, by Sameer Belvalkar

*Sameer Belvalkar*, *acclaimed for 'Jodha Akbar' stills,* is conducting a *two day photography certification workshop 'APERTURE OVERTURES'* to help hobby photographers graduate to serious amateurs. Given below are the details of the program –

On *24th- 25th May 08*

At *Hotel Le Royce, Pune*

Time: 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Fee: *INR 5,400.00* per participant (Lunch and Course material included)

Seats: 20 E-mail: workshop@sameerbelvalkar.com Contact: 9890288722

Also Visit: www.sameerbelvalkar.com For Registration reply to this mail and we will send you a registration form .

Details of the topics covered in the workshop:

1. Photography basics

Each component of the following elements will be covered and explained as to how these components work together to create the photograph and how you can control them to get the results you want.

a. Camera

b. Lens

c. Shutter

d. Aperture

e. Film/digital capture

f. White balance

g. Reading the histogram

2. Composition rules and techniques

3. Understanding Depth of Field and its application (DOF)

4. Understanding the light meter/flash meter

5. Creating your own inexpensive studio

6. Basic Studio Lighting

7. Portrait techniques

8 Taking better pictures

9. Understanding Make-up and its importance

10. Explanation of some important digital terminology such as

a. File types (JPEG, GIF, TIF, PSD, PDF, etc.)

b. Pixel

c. Resolution

d. Bit depth etc.

11. Other elements covered are camera maintenance and accessories, such as tripods, soft boxes, honeycomb grids, flash units etc.

12. Career tips for going about with photography

13. Current Industry trends

14. Live photo shoots and exercises

15. Slideshow with Q & A

What are you upto this year? I am upto MSE (Multiple Self Exploration)

Well! Its new year once again. And am sure many of you must have planned new resolutions. As i heard some of my friends share their resolution, i was really intrigued by the variety of things they wanted to do. And when i was listening to that i was thinkin what am i upto? And i figured out
I am upto MSE. Multiple self exploration. Will share more in next post. Till then you share what u r upto?

World usability day celebrations in India

Being a project director with a usability research firm like Pure IT Usability research has its own advantages. I had the privilege to witness some interesting happening in the usability sphere in india. Manisha Belvalkar, practice head, usability research, Pure IT, an old friend and collegue presented an interesting case study for one of the leading medical information portal in asia pacific. There were three key learnings that i thought i should share with you. To engage users on medical information portal there are three critical factors a. Ease of use b. Information source authenticity and C. Information assimilation. Infact to share my perspective manisha unknowingly gave away the secret to everybody interested in engaging more customer on any online application or website. So once again thanks to manisha belvalkar to enrich us with such keen insights. For more details you can connect with her on manisha@pureuse.com .

How would life be if....

...You actually have all that which you wanted.
...You decided to live life on your own terms
...You suddenly become aware that you have everything it takes to create life the way you want.
And how would life be if i were to tell you that everything written above is possible for you.

Easy blogging tips for beginners

So, finally you have decided to set up your own blog and express yourself. Congratulations! As i see that as your first step towards becoming an active netizen who can contribute and will be contributed back in due course of time. 

"You will get your rewards the extent to which you are willing to contribute."
This is the fundamental principle on which the whole blogosphere is based on. If you are willing to take a plunge and develop a full fledged blog, here are few easy tips you can start with.

Apparently, if you benefit, you might want to thank my friend Kiran gulrajani. As i had mailed him this list as he was initiating his blog. So Kiran thanks a lot once again.

Suggestions or tips to build your blog

1. Select a good blogging platform. (Typepad.com is the best one if you are looking for paid service. Will suggest opt for paid service from longterm view)

2. Keep the lay out simple. Most successful blogs have simplest layouts.

3. Naming is very important. (For eg. depending on your preference you can choose with your name or in the name of your company)

4. Keys to successful blogging.
a. Keep atleatst 10 to 20 articles when you publish it the first time.
b. Share lot of links to other blogs or sites that you find interesting.
c. Keep your posts small and simple. Thumb rule : reader doesnt need to scroll to read the whole post.
d. Keep writing posts everywhere you go. Carry a small pad., or pda or laptop always to write your posts.
e. Getting people to comment on your blog is the key to make it interactive.
f. Easiest way to connect to people beyond your circle is visit other
peoples blogs. Write a genuine comment and ask them to have a look at
your blog. People reciprocate and leave a comment on your blog too.

g. Don't outsource any of the above at least till the time you know all technicalities of blog management.

h. Nowhere else but in blogging sharing is the most important virtue. If at all you cant create a post, make it a habit to  share  an article or a website you found useful with your readers.

5. Some internet tools you must have and use regularly.
a. Install Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer.
b. Get a Gmail id. To access gmail products like Google Notebook. Keep all your notes or surfing discoveries on that. Why? simple! you may not have your pc with you all the time so if for example you want to write a post or add a new story, if you have already added it to gmail notebook you can quickly access it. So excuse of not laptop crashing also gets taken care of.

c. From your blogging controlpanel subscribe for services like feedburner etc. People are now more interested in RSS feeds.

d. Subscribe to stumbleupon. Download Browser add on. Go to preferences, select your interests like spirituality, zen etc. Now everytime you have idle time, through your stumbleupon browser button select your pref and it will show you a site. If you like it store it on notebook for future reference.

e. Get into habbit of bookmarking sites as well.

f. Also download scribefire plug in. That enables you to directly copy paste an online article to your blog in a jiffy. Great tool for those days where we experience writer's block.

g. Use widgets to make your blog more interesting.

h. Open a facebook account and use a facebook widget which can show your latest post.

i. Also explore squidoo.com to promote your blog.

Hope this gets you started. Once you have started please let me know. Wish you all the best.

How to manage your organisation as a whole...Author Sanjiv Bhamre

One of my old friend Sanjiv Bhamre, who is also the author of Bestselling book "Five Great Mysths of Career Building" had published this interesting article on his blog http://systemic-thinking-for-corporates.blogspot.com/  Thought it would be a valuable read for you...
 

According to principle of non-linear thinking, it is far more effective to manage something as a whole.

But how does one manage a huge organization as a whole? Earlier, man devised a fragmentation approach.
He broke the organizational 'whole' into components, calling them
functions and departments, 'strengthen' each of these components, and
hope that together they will produce the whole. We have seen many
‘unintended’ but ‘logical’ consequences of this approach in our
organizations. One of them was that the departments conflicted with
each other to such an extent that ‘politics’ was discovered.

Another
was the constant pushing required for each department ( often called as
motivation in the management language), because no department could see
what it was contributing to the whole. The worst was that the ‘quality’
parameters were determined not by the real customer, but by internal
department rules. Unintended consequences of this approach have been so
many, that many management theories were invented to ‘contain’ them.

Later, man also discovered another alternative to this ‘fragmentation’ approach. Let us call this ‘wholistic’ approach.

In
this approach, different ‘components’ are linked together to form one
link – raw material to finished goods (and even to customer in some
cases). Instead of having ‘inventory’ buffers to take care of the
‘stoppages’ in the manufacturing process, these inventory buffers are
removed so that when the manufacturing process stops, everyone in the
link knows that the ‘whole’ has stopped. Different components
(including quality) come together to solve the ‘problem’ so that the
flow in the link is ‘reestablished’. Each component
(department/function) can now see the whole and therefore knew what is
required to ‘maintain the flow in the whole’.

As soon as the
manufacturing process ‘stabilises’ in a new flow, the inventory buffers
and other buffers are further removed. The newly created instability in
the flow ‘pulls’ different functions to come together and ‘solve’
another problem. No external push or motivation is required to
‘energise’ them. The flab/slack is removed from the manufacturing
process in this manner until the entire process becomes ‘lean’, with
all waste removed. All the support functions – quality, HR, finance,
purchase – know their roles clearly in this flow. The objectives of
customer satisfaction, productivity, cost and safety can be traded off
dynamically, not sequentially. The organization is now managed as a
whole.

If you have already heard of this approach, you are right. This is called lean approach.
All the tools and techniques have been devised for you to implement
this lean approach. Earlier they were devised for manufacturing
process. Now they are well documented for service processes in banks or
order taking. They have been tested and implemented in many
organizations across the world.

Despite this knowledge, what
stops an organization to implement this approach of managing their
organization as a whole? Is it ignorance of the management theories? Or
is it man’s desire to ‘control’ all the time because of which
managements cannot relinquish control to the front line staff?

I wonder what are the causes. Do you know any?

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Values...Source code of all our actions

Contrary to popular belief, i had discovered that we ( Corporate Execs, Managers, People, Junkies), have a big misunderstanding about values.

The belief in corporate world  is " Values are nothing else but good meaning (good looking as well) words and statements, typed and showcased in expensive golden frames on the office corridor walls".

As a Vision Exercise facilitator, i always enjoy watching people do some funny stuff while they are going through "Value Articulation" session. Most of them, barring few are engaged in finding some beautiful words and statements. And when am about to lose my cool, someone sometimes asks a very fundamental question. "Hey lets stop. Lets first find out, what is a value??"

And then i get up, most of the time, with a wicked smile and say this "I was desparately waiting for someone to actually ask this question? And now that you have asked let me give you a simple answer"

Values are action triggers. Whatever you value you will do that. It will reflect in your action naturally. You cant adopt a value. Value is already something thats running you.

For eg. If you have a urgent meeting at office and your friend calls for help as he is not well and hospitalized?  What will you do? Just pause and ask this question to yourself.

If you value your friendship you might reschedule meeting, if you value work you might go to your friend after sometime.

However there is one more thing about values. It will force you to choose in critical moments. And hence what reflects in the critical moments in your jobs, careers and business are your values. And they are reflected not by what you say, but by what you do....

Seems like a long post...but i feel it was worth it...Let me know what you feel??

2 Most Innocent yet Lethal Mind Patterns to watch out for

In my last 15 years of research on Mind Dynamics, here are few patterns that i have found unhealthy. These patterns i had observed in people whom i coached, people whom i met and even in myself sometimes.

Being aware of the impact of these patterns, at least i can break them actively. This post is to help you break them...

Pattern 1. Am the most unfortunate soul...
This is a unique hidden pattern found in almost all of us, the moment things are not going the way we want. Instead of accepting reality, we make it mean something. If you really look at this pattern, its based on what i call "Selective context data gathering" ability of mind. What it means is the moment you begin to view yourself as unfortunate soul, your mind will automatically gather data to support your assumption.

Pattern Breaker : Turn around. Next time you catch yourself getting lost in self pity, just turn around the statement to I am the most fortunate soul. And then see the magic of your mind...

Pattern 2: Am not good enough.
This i call as the one of the classic pattern that had plagued human consciousness since time immemorial. A lie that helps us not take and claim responsibility for our actions. I call it a lie...because it is a lie. As you will use the pattern breaker, you will slowly and naturally begin to discover that it is a lie...

Pattern Breaker : Next time you see yourself running this auto dialog. Just ask a simple question..."Not good enough...Compared to whom?" There it will go up in smoke. It will give you a list of people you are benchmarking yourself against. As if you are a business process that needs to fulfill the benchmarking parameters of others. Thats stupid.
Set yourself free. Know deep in your heart, you are the most unique creature on this earth and there is no one else like you. And hence drop the effort of confirming to any standards that are outside of you. Celebrate who u are...No matter what...

In my journey as a Mind Magic explorer, i have found these two patterns as the most innocent looking and harmless, yet i have always seen that impacts of these patterns actually are carried through our genes for generations. And 99% of the time the impacts are lethal on our mental health and sense of well-being. So next time you see yourself running these, you know what to do...

Do let me know if you found this useful...