From Left to Right – Thesis(in the making) and Mandy

For about a span of 5 Days, co-workers passed by looking at Mandy as if he was painting the wall with ambiguous figures. From the first day, to the next day and the next the excitement kept building up, until their came a day, when we saw her, in full form.

And now, it is hard to pass by without a glance. In fact we know of some who come to hall under the garb of getting some coffee or playing pool, but what they really want to do is take a glance at her, in the hope that she may open her beautiful eyes and say those magical words-

Yep, the beauty of Thesis doesn’t lie in her voluptuous hair, or her eyes, or the way she seems to be gliding farther and farther away from you, but in her maker, her creator-

Thank you Mandy:)

Thesis (Greek θέσις Thesis) is a Primordial Goddess of Creation.

In the 1914′s Sir Shackleton started off on a mission to reach the cross the Antarctic Continent – South Pole was already discovered by then. He failed at his goal, his ship was wrecked even before it touched the Antarctic mainland, braved one of the most inhospitable environments on the Earth for more than 2 years (19 months), managed to keep his entire 27 man strong crew alive throughout these 2 years – and successfully managed to get them back alive.

Shackleton never reached the South Pole, a goal he had started out with – but still is a legendary model of leadership. Why? Because he survived the impossible. His real life story is a tribute to the human spirit and endurance.

While reading this book, I was totally overwhelmed with a sense of respect for Shackleton. His acute sense of reading the human mind, what makes people tick, keeping the crew from mutiny and killing each other by engaging them in certain well thought of activities – while constantly thinking of how to get every one safely out of there and many many more testing situations – is leadership tested to it’s very hilt; and Shackleton rose to the occasion.

Apart from being a very inspiring book, I feel that at the beginning of the new century, it has relevant lessons for all of us. The spirit of exploration, braving new frontiers, challenging yourself, innovating, venturing into new territory – are aspects that we are faced with at this time of Global change and new opportunities.

There is a tremendous take home value for anyone who ‘is’ or ‘would be’ leading a team of people. Lessons for all kinds of situations – HR, managing employee morale, advertising (see below the ad he wrote for inviting people to join him in the expedition – almost perfect), managers, crisis management, strategic planning, self leadership, braving the unexpected etc.

Shackleton’s ‘Men Wanted’ Ad:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”

Outstanding book and my bible for Leadership. Highly recommended!!

This post stems from the recent post made by Amit, working in the Equality and Diversity Department of Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN).

Living diversity is easier said than done. Our trained brain cells translate this term into ‘cultural diversity’ almost immediately and we view the complete conversation wearing these colored glasses.

This is the most common problem on the Web. A better part of the Web consists of websites that are unknowingly insensitive to diversity in their content as well as website accessibility.

We wrote interesting articles on Web accessibility and Living Diversity on the Web.

Creating a platform that is sensitive to diverse audience is not an easy task – but when you are providing a service, being able to deliver to your audience regardless of their culture, gender or any disability should be one of the end goals.

BTW, I answered the question correctly Amit –