Archive for the ‘ Ideas ’ Category

My 6 Best Books from 2006 – Speed Reviews

I am an avid reader. In fact, I have read almost 50 books this year. But life is short and workdays are long so I have to be choosy about what to include in my diet of books and I like to read widely with a balanced diet of different genres.

Here is a list of best books with their categories that I read this year. The synopses of the books are available through the links, so I have simply added my subjective opinions in the form of pros and cons. I hope that you will enjoy these to add to your balanced diet in 2007.

The Long Tail
Author: Chris Anderson
Category: Business 
Pro: Helped me see niche markets everywhere and reinvigorated my enthusiasm for our modern, connected world 
Con: It got repetitive at times and the idea is too new to have much credible economic research behind it 

Getting to Yes
Author: Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, Bruce Patton
Category: How To
Pro: Made me argue against the truth behind my opponent’s argument, instead of simply fighting over their official position 
Con: There is not much wrong with this book – it delivered what it promised 

Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior
Author: Chogyam Trungpa
Category: Spirituality
Pro: Rinpoche a Tibetan who went to Oxford University – he has huge credibility and has a sense of humor as well 
Con: The title and cover art make it look like it is a cult handbook and the prose is sometimes awkwardly written 

Female Chauvinist Pigs
Author: Ariel Levy 
Category: Women’s Studies
Pro: A very interesting take on women in a cultural phenomena written in a very palatable form
Con: It takes some things that are not important too seriously does not lie on a solid foundation of research 

Self Esteem
Author: Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning   
Category: Personal Development 
Pro: The exercises are straightforward and it helped me work through some personal blocks in a painless way   
Con: It has a chapter on hypnotism which seems out of place

Hey Nostradamus!
Author: Douglas Coupland
Category: Fiction
Pro: Very creative, thoughtful and full of surprises
Con: Sometimes the light treatment of such a serious subject made me feel uneasy

2006
12/28
POSTED BY
Stefanie
CATEGORY
Books
Ideas
Lists
Personal Development
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Thousands of Corporate Secrets Revealed Daily?

Img_05531 There are over 100,000 blogs created every day according to Technocrati. Wow… that is a lot of new voices instantly communicating to the world – one thing they could be communicating is corporate secrets. A consultancy called "The Attention Company" discussed what that means from a business perspective in their presentation Out There.

In their survey, 8% of people thought it was appropriate to share trade secrets through a blog and 39% thought it was appropriate to share opinions about the performance of the company. It is obvious that this information could affect both competitive positioning and share price.

Blogs are a modern-day medium for secrets – bringing the water-cooler gossip to the world, instantly. The internet allows people to share their stories openly, without the permission of an authority. The conservative PR department, which in my experience sits right next to the legal department, no longer controls the way that employees represent the company to the world.

According to The Attention Company, people who are “Out There”, meaning those who consider it okay to criticize their organization online, have very unique opinions about competition and their organizational lives. They think that knowledge resides at the bottom of the organization, endorse transparency and are not trusting of those that keep secrets.

These people sound a lot like the traditional non-conformists who want to have a voice and don’t want to be tied down by rules. We have all heard stories of employees who were fired for having a blog but with 100,000 being created a day, it seems impossible to keep the “out there” people at bay. Like any “vice squad” trying to rid an area of crime knows, once you bust one criminal, another appears to pick up where he left off.  The presentation concludes that companies should accept the new reality and use the “Out There” people to drive internal innovation and communication. In other words, you are being watched so you better behave!

Outside the business realm, what does it mean to have no more secrets?  We all have family or personal secrets that could get us in trouble. This makes me think of the Girl with a One Track Mind. A British woman, who once worked on the set of Harry Potter, published her sex life online to later have her identity revealed by mistake. Her blog discussed having multiple partners with intimate details.

Because of the social stigma associated with women enjoying the sexuality, she was afraid that she would be treated like an outcast. But she wasn’t – in fact many of her friends and family members supported her. So, it is possible that revealed secrets about who you really are can lead to greater acceptance and more connection with the people that you care about. It will be interesting to see how a world with fewer secrets will look. But as an “Out There” person myself who “doesn’t trust those who keep secrets”, I am looking forward to it.

2006
12/26
POSTED BY
Stefanie
CATEGORY
Business
Ideas
Social Theory
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Skip the Middle Man this Christmas – Love Direct

Img_05441 Christmas, as we know, is a religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. But, most people I know who celebrate Christmas are not doing it for the religious meaning. Instead they have their own reasons… they want to use it as a chance to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy the spirit of giving in the air.

The malls are a-buzz with the Christmas spirit. Wal Mart is now open 24 hours and I heard that even at 7:00 am the lines are crazy (at the Barrie, Ontario location at least). If Christmas is all about love and togetherness, why are presents front and center? Why do we have to express love through an object? It makes a lot of sense for the kids, since they cannot buy their own presents… but for most of us adults, if we really want something we will just go out and buy it. It is nice for people to give gifts, but instead of waiting in long lines for mass-produced gifts-to-be, why can’t we spend our time and energy with the people that we love expressing it?

If you think about it, expressing love through an object is not that efficient. Imagine that you buy your boyfriend a cell phone. You put love into thinking about the present. Then you put love into the time it takes to buy the present and the money it took to buy it. Then you wrap it with care. When he opens it on Christmas morning, what happens if he doesn’t want it or like it? All of your love that you put into the gift was for nothing.

My advice for the holidays is to "love direct" and spend time connecting directly with the people you love instead of connecting through an object. That way you can skip the "middle man" and feel the tenderness that is part of the season.

Does this advice sound unrealistic to you? If yes, you can conclude that Christmas is NOT only about family and the spirit. It IS about the presents – for the adults as well! So, have a merry Christmas, and reflect on the "true" meaning as you work through your pile of presents.

2006
12/23
POSTED BY
Stefanie
CATEGORY
Ideas
Social Theory
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Rituals the Secular Individualist Way

Img_05442_1  Life is a series of beginnings and endings and rituals are, for the most part, a way to symbolically mark these moments. They have been a part of human culture for tens of thousands of years – the earliest known evidence of burial rituals dates back 20,000 years. Historically they have been associated with organized religion but since many of us North Americans have turned away from that, there is a void when it comes to marking important events in our lives. 

Some of the void has been filled by the educational ritual. It makes sense because education plays a more important role in today’s because of the information economy. Look at the educational coming of age surrounding the graduation from high school and the departure to University and College. Also,  look at the graduation ceremony itself with the traditional gowns and the convocation speeches launching the graduating class into the future. Secular people also venture into ceremonies when it comes to weddings and funerals.

But there are still many things that are left unmarked by ceremony and ritual. The academic and the traditional ones capture the relationships that are official, but most of us have a network of unofficial relationships and events as well. Most of our lives DO NOT only involve our partners, our families, our teachers and our classmates. What about our best friends and our colleagues? What about all of the significant events in our lives that go unmarked such as coming of age or the beginning and end of important relationships other than marriage?

For example, for me and everyone I know, High School or University/College was the place where they transitioned from being kid to being an adult. During that time, we chose our profession, lost our virginity, formed our "tribe" of friends etc. But, in the secular world, other than the "sweet 16" party, we have no ritual connoting the time when we go off into the world and become an adult. In other words, there is no secular bar mitzvah.

This means that when we go off into adulthood, it feels lonely and it is unclear what it means. An idea that my sister and I came up with to resolve this problem is having a party in the summer before each of her three kids go off to high school – marking the change in role that is coming, and supporting them throughout. This is much more broad than just the educational graduation ceremony; it is about the next big life step that they are going to take and the new role that they are going to embark on. 

Weddings are becoming and exaggeratedly important ritual. The wedding industry is booming (the average bride spends $800 on her dress alone) despite the changing role of wives in society. But, with the divorce rate being what it is, why isn’t there any ritual for divorce? I heard of a divorced women shredding all of the documents from her messy proceedings while drinking champagne with her friends – what a way to mark an end!

My friend and I have both recently gone through break-ups in relationships that were very important to us. To get closure, we burned their pictures and threw away their gifts – in fact I threw one of mine off of my apartment balcony, took a digital pic of the demolished item and distributed it to my friends and family. We also "christened"  them with new names (for example "Cheater") so it would be a constant reminder about what ended the relationship. There were also electronic rituals such as blocking them from e-mail, erasing all correspondence and removing them from MSN Instant Messenger.

So – it seems like in the absence of rituals for us secular, individualist folk, some of us are creating our own. As our world keeps changing and evolving, so can the things we put rituals around and how we mark them.

2006
12/23
POSTED BY
Stefanie
CATEGORY
Ideas
Individualism
Social Theory
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International Brides to be Free

Img_05461 A programmer at work is leaving our team and taking the break between jobs to go back to Taiwan. He moved here originally when he was seven. Now in his late-twenties, he is going back for the first time to visit his relatives.

"Tell the truth," said one of my colleagues originally from Vietnam. "You are going back to Taiwan to find a wife! Look at him, tall, good looking, a great job… and a Canadian passport! He will be a hit!!!!"

The 19-year-old co-op student of Chinese background giggled at the passport comment.

"It is funny because it was true," she said. According to her, Canadian men are bringing back Asian wives "all of the time".

She knows a 20-year-old guy who went to China and brought back an 18 year-old wife. He quit school and started a small business to support her. He is average looking,where she is gorgeous – from what the co-op student told us, her looks were clearly her "assets" in that relationship. During the conversation, it was if we were in a Jane Austin novel where the only chance at success for women was through marriage. We were just joking, but it felt like the joke was on these International women, and Canadian men were just taking advantage of them.

Further, according to my colleagues, many of the women who choose this route simply go into having babies right away – since they don’t have job skills or English skills. Getting married to improve social status is one of the oldest stories in the book for women, but somehow the difference in power (1st world vs. 3rd world, English speaking vs. non-English speaking, working vs. non-working) is disheartening to me.

Then we started talking about Filipino nannies. I brought up a story of a co-worker’s brother who made his nanny work six days a week and only paid her only $60/week plus room and board. Meanwhile descent daycare in Toronto costs $60 + dollars a day. This is an example of International women using nurturing "assets" to get ahead but getting taken advantage of in the process. It doesn’t exactly seem like the "Canadian Dream" replete with hope and potential.

That being said, my best friend’s mother started as a Filipino nanny and is now a nurse and a pillar of her community with two very successful daughters. One of whom is a writer and has her third-level black-belt in Jiu Jitsu (and just happens to be very beautiful as well). This is an example of someone who got her foot in the door based on her nurturing "assets", giving her a chance to make a better life for herself and her family.

As a business women, I too use all of my "assets" to get ahead. In my mid-twenties, I got into meetings that my male colleagues would never have a chance to go to since some of the PhDs we were pitching to liked to "look at me". Also, look at the female singers from Madonna to Diana Krall who use their sexuality to sell hits. So… why would it make me uncomfortable to hear of these international women doing the same?

So during that lunch-time conversation I proposed a new option for these international wives and nannies. After the programmer’s new Taiwanese bride used her marriage status to come to Canada, she could come to my apartment where I would empower her.

"Yes…" I would coach her,  "you can make your own life here. No… you don’t have to listen to everything your husband says. Yes… you can use your mind, your passion and your strength as well as your attractiveness and nurturing to get ahead."

I could give her lessons on English since that is the greatest predictor of success as an immigrant. I could teach her how to go to school or to become an entrepreneur. Then the joke is not on her, it is on the people who do not see her potential.

2006
12/16
POSTED BY
Stefanie
CATEGORY
Ideas
Social Theory
Women
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I’m On the Run from the Killer B’s

B for Belief. B for Belonging. The B's that lead to most of the killing in the world. If you don't Belong among us, then you're our inferior, our enemy, or both. And you can't Belong among us if you don't Believe what we Believe. Maybe not even then, but it certainly helps. Our religion, our party, our tribe, our town, our school, our race. Believe. Belong. Behave. Or Be Damned.

Tom Robbins

43 Things