Time great reset

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin After the one-two gut punch of the pandemic and Great Resignation, followed in rapid succession by the Capitol insurrection, racial and political unrest and now climate change and recession worries, happiness doesn’t come easy these days. August is National Wellness Month and a time to focus on self-care, stress management and developing a healthy daily routine. Research has discovered that a simple action right under your nose has the power to lift your mood and help you get through these turbulent times. It sounds too simple to be true, but science backs it up, and the news couldn’t come at a better time for the American workforce. Research Says Don’t Wipe That Smile Of Your Face “Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone,” goes the song. For decades, singers have crooned about the power of smiling to make you feel better. Back in the day, many people took that advice as pop psychology. But not anymore. … [Read more...] about One Simple Strategy Gets You Through Your Workday During These Turbulent Times

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma Paytm was the poster boy for India’s tech startups, only to lose two-thirds of its value since its IPO and become a symbol of the industry’s crash. Now its founder promises a sharpened focus on financial performance to convince investors of the money-losing company’s prospects. The digital-payments provider is set to become India’s first internet company to hit $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of this fiscal year in March, said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, 44. The brand, known formally as One97 Communications Ltd., is also shifting its attention from growth toward profitability, Sharma said in his first extensive interview following the high-profile public debut in November. “We’re earnestly chasing the $1 billion goal,” he said during an hours-long conversation last week at Paytm’s new chrome-and-glass headquarters in Noida, outside New Delhi, in a vast green expanse filled with wandering cattle. “For me, the public listing was a sort of … [Read more...] about Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma seeks to reset fintech pioneer after IPO fiasco

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Today is launch day for Tower of Fantasy , the new MMORPG that aims to channel the gacha success of Genshin Impact into a new world and genre. Tower of Fantasy is a lot more multiplayer-focused than Genshin, and made by fellow Chinese developer Perfect World. But to echo Genshin’s success will take a lot more than a similar looking world and characters. Tower of Fantasy has been slammed with some pretty common MMO launch issues since servers went online late last night. Players are running into 24 hour queue times, or getting through queues only to have their game crash and reset. Others are getting in, but then getting booted out of servers. Some are being told to change servers to reduce queue times, but that is not terribly helpful if you have already made a character/progress on one specific server. While these are not uncommon MMO launch problems, I have larger concerns about the technical bonafides of Tower of … [Read more...] about ‘Tower Of Fantasy’ Slammed With Long Queue Times, Server Issues On Launch Day

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Contrary to the legends about brilliant ideas just falling from the trees like apples, great innovators don't sit or wander aimlessly waiting for inspiration to hit them in the head. Serendipity is real, of course, as are eureka moments in the shower, but the most prolific innovators actively work to increase their odds of making momentous discoveries. Whether by choosing topics heretofore underexplored, selecting important problems, charting new territory, or leveraging existing skills, great innovators have a knack for positioning themselves in the right place at the right time. In a recent conversation with William G. Kaelin Jr. , 2019 Nobel laureate and the Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he shared that: "When I was a young boy, my father liked to fish. And I learned that one of the most important decisions a fisherman makes is where to fish. Likewise, … [Read more...] about Where Do Great Innovators Get Their Ideas? Five Tips From A Nobel Prize Winner

Everyone has a personal story to tell. Some people are just better than others at telling those stories. Learning to craft and share an origin story is a valuable communication skill that every entrepreneur and small business should strive to sharpen. Storytelling skills will help you differentiate your idea or the products and services you sell. An origin story means exactly what it says--it reveals the origin of an idea. Where I live, in Silicon Valley, the most famous origin story started in a garage. It goes like this: In 1976, two friends started a computer company. One person was a brilliant engineer, and the other had a passion for marketing and design. Together, the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) created Apple in the garage of the house where Jobs lived with his parents. Together, they revolutionized the industry and made computers easy to use for the average person. In 1985, Jobs was kicked out of his own company after a failed boardroom coup. He returned … [Read more...] about 4 Basic Elements of Great Storytelling

Sen. Risa Hontiveros —Senate photo Could a former budget official linked to the Pharmally controversy uncovered by the Senate last year help explain the “pricey but outdated” laptops purchased for schoolteachers of the Department of Education (DepEd)? Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Friday said she would file a resolution that would ask the Senate to again summon former Budget Undersecretary Christopher Lao, who used to head the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), in connection with its purchase also last year of about 39,000 laptops worth P2.4 billion. An earlier resolution by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III directs the Senate blue ribbon committee to conduct an inquiry into the purchase of the laptops which the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged in its 2021 report on DepEd. In a statement on August 5, DepEd said: “The question on the price of the laptops can best be answered by … PS-DBM, the procuring entity for the units. The … [Read more...] about Risa Hontiveros: Call back ex-DBM exec, this time over ‘pricey’ laptops

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Professor Zvi Bodie, my long-time friend and Boston University colleague, has long been an avid proponent of I-bonds, introduced by the US Treasury in 1998. Given today's negative yields on TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities), Zvi's argument for I-bonds is particularly compelling. Professor Zvi Bodie is my long-time friend and Boston University colleague. He's also one of the world's top finance economists. Zvi's textbook, Investments , coauthored with Alex Kane and Alan Marcus, is used in all the major business schools around the globe and has been translated into 10 languages in addition to English. With Nobel Laureate in Economics, Robert C. Merton, Bodie co-authored an introductory textbook Financial Economics , which has been translated into nine languages. But Zvi's not just an egghead like me. He's absolutely devoted to helping people with their personal financial problems as his terrific … [Read more...] about I-Bonds — A Great, Safe Investment Opportunity

So you're a manager, and you're finding that your team has diverse personalities , egos and strong opinions. Your managing efforts under this daily scenario can be downright challenging. It's worse when people with opposing personal agendas, dictated by hubris , pull against each other. Political silos surface, people take sides, and morale eventually suffers. When it becomes about "you," you can bet that team progress, creativity, and productivity is about to be stifled. So how do you protect your team and team meetings from feeling like the drama in a bad reality-TV show? Set Team Agreements If your team drama has reached critical mass, it's probably time to set clear team working agreements. This sets the stage for the kind of team culture and values you want moving forward. For example, a team agreement might be something like "We all agree to engage the discussion fully with our mission in mind." It works because it's based on team … [Read more...] about This Powerful Meeting Hack Is One of the Best Ways to Inspire Great Teamwork

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin I've written a few times about both the value of older workers and the need for society to change how we perceive older people. This is especially so given the widely documented skills shortages across the economy in recent years. It should be hugely worrying, therefore, that the Covid pandemic has seen huge numbers of older workers leaving the workforce. In the UK alone around 300,000 extra workers aged between 50 and 65 have been identified as economically inactive since the start of the pandemic. Economic inactivity A recent study from the University of Essex explores some of the possible impacts this economic inactivity could have on the economy. The analysis reveals that while it may seem intuitive to think that those leaving the workforce are those with more financial stability, it is actually those with middle to lower-middle incomes that tend to be leaving. Indeed, the biggest rise in economic inactivity … [Read more...] about Covid Saw An Exodus Of Over 50s From The Workforce

Sagar Ahlawat, 23, will go up against the UK's Delicious Orie in the super heavyweight boxing final of CWG 2022, at 1.15am IST on August 8. (Image: Twitter/Boxing Federation of India) There’s nothing quite as satisfying for a sports writer as when she or he predicts possible outcomes in an ongoing tournament, and those declarations come true. This is less about ego—“I told you so!”—and far more about a certain kind of wish fulfilment . Because these predictions are never made on the back of just cold calculations, but also a “feeling”, and a deep-seated desire to see a dream come true, no matter the odds. In the course of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2022, I wrote about Smriti Mandhana being on course for batting greatness. On August 6, Mandhana played a spectacular innings—one of the finest in her career—to lift India into the finals of the women’s T20 event, beating home favourites England in the process. Another article was about long jumper Murali Sreeshankar’s … [Read more...] about 2022 Commonwealth Games: When dreams—and predictions—come true