Friday, November 30, 2007

The Power of Servant Leadership

The other day I received the company's news via e-mail, you know, that list of news about your employer and other fellow workers... usually very boring... anyway... in this one I read about a guy and his achievements... blah, blah, blah... but he mentioned he is reading the book that is the reason and title of this post: The Power of Servant Leadership.



Instantly the suggestive title got me into Amazon and I was able to read a little bit about it... here some lines from it I think are worth to share:

"... If a better society is to be built, one more just and one more caring and providing opportunity for people to grow, the most effective and economical way while supportive of the social order, is to raise the performance as servant of as many institutions as possible by new voluntary regenerative forces initiated within them by committed individuals: servants."

"... I have come to believe that a serious lack of vision is a malady of epidemic proportions among the whole gamut of institutions that I know quite intimately: churches, schools, businesses, philanthropies. And that needed vision is not likely to be supplied by the administrative leadership of those places."

"... If there is to be a constant infusion of vision that all viable institutions need, whatever their missions, the most likely source of those visions is their trustees who are involved enough to know, yet detached enough from managerial concern, that their imaginations are relatively unimpaired."

I didn't know there is a lot of information about the concept of Servant Leadership, you might like it as well as this book, unless you are an administrator ;-)

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Telecomm videos on YouTube

After finding that Tellabs has an interesting site focus on "schooling" the masses, I searched YouTube for videos from the big boys: the telecoms like Motorola, Nortel, Lucent (R.I.P), Alcatel (AlcaLu after eating Lucent... haha!!), Ericsson, Siemens and obviously Tellabs too. Here the results:

Bell Labs Song


Nortel -- Our Story


Siemens Japan Promo Video



Tellabs DynamicHome Solution


The other companies didn't have anything good to share with you.... btw, don't you think the Bells Labs Song is hilarious?

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Evolution of the technology enthusiast


Thanks to Cyanide and Happiness!

You can find the original post here.

Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Google bigger plan for Mobile Phones

Google seems to "wanna be" another Cellular Provider? Why is Google trying to buy RF spectrum? What is behind all the following signals?

Developed Android software for mobile phones.
Made Google applications -- including email, chat and mapping -- available on cellphones.
Sells advertisements for certain Web sites accessed by cellphone.
Enables users to do Web and business searches with cellphone browsers, by text message or with a call.
Is testing an advanced wireless network at Google headquarters.
Operates a free Wi-Fi network in Mountain View, Calif.
Expected to bid for wireless spectrum in a January FCC auction.


Google Maps running on Android

Will all these lead to a future national cellular/wireless provider?

A final answer for all these questions remains to be seen, but a glimpse to what is going on has been provided by The Wall Street Journal Online in this article.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Einstein Puzzle... Who owns the Fish?

Urban legend has it that this puzzle was written by Einstein (Lewis Carroll also given attribution) and that he claimed only 2% of the world's population could solve it.

Which percentage are you in?

OR

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PUZZLE
There are five houses in five different colors.
In each house lives a person of a different nationality.
These five owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigarette and keep a certain pet.
No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of smoke or drink the same drink.

GIVEN THAT:
  1. The Brit lives in the red house.
  2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
  3. The Dane drinks tea.
  4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
  5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
  6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
  7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
  8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
  9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
  10. The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
  11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
  12. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
  13. The German smokes Prince.
  14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
  15. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.
The question is: WHO OWNS THE FISH?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No fair looking up the solution online or writing code to solve it for you. I was forced to solve this puzzle last night under threat of pre-teen ridicule.

But, if you are so lacy to solve it and just want the answer, then follow this link.... shame on you! hahaha!!!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Mitsubishi Outlander... Japan, USA or Europe?

Have you ever thought about buying a Mitsubishi? In particular an Outlander? You don't see them very often in the highways or around your city, right?

The Outlander seems to be very popular in Japan, at least according with this note back in 2006: New Mitsubishi Outlander Japan's Best Selling SUV

Basically we have 2 versions: Japan/USA version and Europe version, besides the original concept... here the pictures:

The Concept
Europe version
USA version

Well, then... why aren't they popular? An answer for the Outlander itself will be hard to guess, but (it has been a long time since I wanted to know this) why Mitsubishi vehicles are not popular in the USA market? I haven't found the answer yet, but I heard Mitsubishi had a bad model in the 80's, when they were starting in the USA market, since then their reputation has been terrible... no matter what! If you know any other reason, please post a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Monday, November 5, 2007

World's Best Bottoms are from Bulgaria and Romania

So... what happened with the Brazilians or Italians women? were they in the contest?
Anyway, guys were also there... not that I care, but I will be fair with the female readers ;-)

Here the note from Reuters:

"Oct. 31 - Two winners are awarded the hotly-contested title of the "world's most beautiful bottom".

19-year-old Kristina Dimitrova from Bulgaria and Andrei Andrei aged 24 from Romania won the women's and men's categories in the world's best bum contest, organised by the underwear maker Sloggi.

43 candidates from 28 countries battled it out at the final in Munich to convince the jury of the quality of their behind.

Joanna Partridge reports for Reuters"

And the video...