Yesterday, I happen to be at my local Target store and realized that the Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii were debuting. Is it just me or does anyone else find it strange that gamers give up the comfort of their own homes and erect shanty towns around BestBuy, Target, and Wal-Mart stores? Only in a consumer oriented society do people willingly become shanty people.
Author: Francisco
How To Be A Great Manager
I seem to remember a time when I was young and thought I could do anything. When work was fun and I stayed at the office for countless hours and thought that hard work and dedication is all you needed to be successful. I was never more wrong, but hey, it happens. One of the naive notions I had was that if your technical, (that’s work jargon for saying you are smart at what you do), that would be enough to make you a great manager. In truth being a great manager is incredibly hard to achieve, and it takes some time to even become a somewhat good manager. Brilliance does not necessarily equal greatness. Managers do many things, and while technical skills are always a plus, if you ever want to be successful in your career, you have to constantly improve others and yourself in the process.
Lesson 1: Utilize Your People
It does not matter how smart you are, what matters is that you can motivate your people to work together. This means you need to know who your people are, what they can do, what they can’t do, and what they would like to do? Find out exactly who your team is, then give them the resources to be successful. If they run into obstacles its your job to get those annoyances out of their way. Remember, good managers are successful because the people that work under them produce, so ask your people how they can work better and then let them show you.
Lesson 2: Improve Yourself
Any business seminar will tell you that improving yourself is the best thing you can do to improve your company. Companies invest in people who invest in themselves. It is not what your company can do for you, it is what you can do for the company, and the only way to be innovative and progressive at work is for you to use all your available resources to learn more. This means taking extra classes, reading more about everything (not just your own field of work), and learning to be a better listener. You will find that by trying to be a better person, you also become a better manager.
Lesson 3: Seek Out Wisdom
Regardless of how the digital lifestyle has changed our work environment, we still live in a society and not in a cubicle alone with our computers. Now more than ever, it is important that you surround yourself with good people. To be a better manager, you need to work with great managers. Learning from others is something which we all do, so make sure that you pick up on the good advice from your peers.
Lesson 4: Accept Criticism
Everyone hates filling out surveys, but surveys are essential to business. They tell you a lot about the perceptions that people have about a business. In essence surveys are a form of feedback and criticism. As a manager you need to be open to criticism and evaluation from everyone. Without any feedback, how will you know what areas to improve on? No one becomes the perfect manager overnight. Good management skills are something you work on every day.
Cheap Music
In my lifetime I must have owned more than thirty different Sony Walkmans. Just cleaning my basement last month, I found my collection of over three hundred cassettes. Like most teenagers, I lived music. From 80’s style pop music, to Chicago House dance music, to heavy metal guitar bands, I listened to it all. But as you get older, music becomes less important in your life, and you just do not have the time to sit back and lose yourself as much. Sure I have an iPod, but it somehow isn’t the same. On some weekends, I drive the pickup truck, which still has a tape deck (haven’t had the time to make a new car stereo a priority), and usually listen to an old mix tape.
Of late I have started to buy music again. The Lynyrd Skynyrd’s All Time Greatest Hits is a good collection of southern rock hits to listen to while driving. Last week I picked up The Very Best of Kiss, which I haven’t yet listened to, and I’m still not sure why exactly I got my first KISS album, other than I watch a lot of Family Guy and Halloween and KISS, kind of go together. Regardless, one big reason I bought these albums, was the $9.99 sale price. Most newer music releases nowadays are overpriced (not to mention over-hyped) and simply not worth buying. Online downloads have only made it worse, because they have made the album worthless, if you can get only the two or three singles you want at a fraction, why even bother with the CD? The Register has an interesting interview with music insider Petter Jenner in which he implicates the record industry of destroying their own retail CD sales:
The record companies have increased their margin on downloads, because the costs have been ripped out. So they’ve cut the artists royalties and raised their margin. But because they’ve replaced an album with a single they’ve helped destroy the retail industry, they’re now in a position where they’re completely fucked.
As for decent rock music, I’d have to say that Pearl Jam and U2 are the definitive rock bands. They have outlasted the critics and their peers, and while I’m a bit skeptical of U2’s recent work, Pearl Jam is as solid as AC/DC.