Skip to main content

Posts

Mental Models 101 What the heck is a mental model ? A mental model is like a blueprint of how you can boost up your capacity to make decisions that are more strategic and intelligent. It typically is a one-dimensional view of reality and hence you would need to use a variety of models based on circumstances. Examples are many but a few you may have heard of include First Principles Thinking, Second-Order Thinking and Systems Thinking Why use them ? Some Advantages Of Mental Models Include : 1. They are efficiency engines: A mental model is going to help the brain learn how to run more efficiently, especially when it comes to dealing with some tasks that may be repetitive and routine. This is going to allow the brain to be more creative and to focus on novel inputs instead. 2. They are Effective: These mental models are going to help limit the errors that we see, and will make sure there is less wasted effort. This is going to make the brain power more effecti...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts
  4 Tips To Becoming A Great Storyteller  Understanding the difference between presenting and storytelling is critical to a leader’s ability to engage an audience and move them to action. Unfortunately, presentation software often gets in the way. Slides should be designed to complement a story, not to replace the storyteller. Following are five storytelling strategies to help you stand out the next time you give a presentation. Presenters open PowerPoint. Storytellers craft a narrative. If you want to engage your audience, you have to tell a story. But for most people who prepare presentations, storytelling is not top of mind. Most “presenters” do what sounds logical: They begin by opening the slideware. But most presentation programs aren’t storytelling tools. They’re digital delivery mechanisms. PowerPoint’s default template asks for a title and text. A bulleted list is not a story. A story is a connected series of events told through words and/or pictur...
Post a Comment
Read more

COVID & The Making Of A Vaccine (460 BC till 1823 ; A journey through Greece, China and England)

There are around 70+ companies working on a vaccine for COVID-19 (Corona Virus) right now. It’s quite interesting to note that we have only ~22 vaccines available around the world .. for example we don’t have vaccines for malaria, Nipa virus etc but do have treatments for them. I was quite curious on the concept of vaccination and decided to research and see what’s up with this. Aided by wikipedia and research on the internet, I think it’s a very interesting history to the evolution of the vaccine.   THE GREEK CONNECTION   In fact the seeds for a vaccine probably started from 460 BC when a noted historian and writer (Thucydides) saw that some people became ill from the plague which was prevalent then and recovered and could tend to other sick without falling sick again.   THE CHINA CONNECTION   Fast forward to the middle ages and Plague, Smallpox were the major diseases which ravaged the world and at one point 1 out of every 3 were d...
Post a Comment
Read more
# sharing # know # resource # think # fundamentals # startups # akp #Top60DecisionMakingToolsForStartups The Effectuation approach (analyzing the means and selecting the approach) as compared to the causality approach (defining the objective and selecting the means) is a practical and useful approach for decision making and problem solving.    Take a look at it and use it in your everyday approach towards problem solving especially startups.    
Post a Comment
Read more
# excellence # framework # important # AllItTakesIsAMinute # AKP#TopToolsForStartups The theory of constraints framework helps identify the most important bottleneck in your processes and systems in your organization which can then be dealt with to improve performance.  It is also about strengthening your weakest link. # management
Post a Comment
Read more
# value # inspiration # newyear Just a bit of trivia, December got its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the calendar of Romulus c. 750 BC which began in March and we have entered a month named after the Roman god Janus, an appropriate personification of the start of the new year.  This particular Roman god Janus had two faces so that he could look ahead toward the future and back at the past at the same time. As we get rid of an old year and look forward to a new one, I hope we can all try to be a little like Janus. We know through experience what we did wrong and what we did right, and hope to do better this year.  Many of us make ambitious new year resolutions while people like me just take a deep breath and hope for the best.…Here's wishing you and your family a happy new year 2020
Post a Comment
Read more

Avoid Being The Ice Harvester - Don't Drive Your Life Looking Backwards

It is human nature to fear the unknown and be very comfortable with the known but the times are such that to grow, you would need to constantly expand your comfort zone and explore unknowns ... This is a great story which illustrates this ..... In the late 1800s there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeastern part of the US. Companies would cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world. The largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100 tons got there un-melted, but this was enough to make a profit. These ice harvesters, however, were put out of business by companies that invented mechanical ice makers. It was no longer necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could make it in any city during any season. These ice makers, however, were put out of business by refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and create cold storage in everyo...
Post a Comment
Read more