Archives de catégorie : Idea

A simple method to find ideas and be creative

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Sometimes when you have to find ideas for your next project, irrespective of what it is, the best source of inspiration is other’s work!

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
Voltaire

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May the Kindle be!

And for this idea generation, I generally use my Kindle! There’s a simple function in Kindle that allows you to annotate a text. I generally due this when reading a sentence or a paragraph that inspires me. I collection quotes too, like the one above, but I would say quotes can be easily found on the net, extract from text you read have a more personal relation: you read the book, the text ticked at a particular moment and you made the effort to set it aside.

With a kindle, you can go back to your notes by opening My clippings (I have a pretty old kindle, so not sure it’s all the same in the newer ones, but I’m sure you’ll manage). There, I browse through all the extract I kept over the years. Inevitably, something will resonate. You will remember why you picked this sentence, it will remind you of a particular story or it will inspire you. It never failed me and I’m sure it will not fail you if you just use it.

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Creativity is a matter of brain connection

Being creative is not difficult, it just requires some action and some tricks like this kindle one. Ideas are never created ex nihilo, although sometimes we may feel they are. It’s just our brain playing some nasty tricks on ourselves. Because ideas are just coming from other ideas, linked one to another in a neuron mesh. The beauty of the process, the more you use it, the easier it becomes. Practice makes perfection!

May be I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one

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Dear Reader,

Four days ago, I was writing about who I am. Of course if you’ve found my blog, found it interesting, came back and, even follow it, then I tend to think we are digital friends and we may be friends in the physical world (actually, I know some of my physical friends are there sometimes, and I like that). Based on a couple of comments over the last days, allow me to explain the title and the URL of this blog. A picture is worth a thousand word they say:

There are a couple of things to this picture. For those of you who were not born in 1975, it’s the fourth album of Supertramp, one of the iconic rock band of the seventies and early eighties that released hits like Dreamer, Breakfast in America, and It’s Raining Again. Think that in 1975, the year of the release of this album, the world was in the middle of the « oil crisis » with oil prices going to the roof and recession all over the place (sounds a bell no?), and just one year after resignation of president Nixon following the Watergate scandal.

Now in the middle of these crisis, of the increasing industrial footprint (40 years before the COP 21), sits this guy, relaxing on his lounge chair, getting tanned. Some can see a selfish dude not caring about what’s happening around him, I see hope. And this is the meaning of the title of the album, Crisis? What Crisis? that I chose for this blog (I chose it before realizing it was the title of the Supertramp album, read it here). To me this means that yes, there’s a crisis outside, there are many crisis actually, financial, moral, etc. But since the beginning of mankind, crisis have been ongoing. In other words, there’s always a crisis somewhere. However, we all have the power to act positively against those crisis, to switch off the TV to avoid being bombarded by desperation, and to get happy with the little things in life.

Finally, in this album you’ll find what I consider not only the best song of Supertramp but one of the best songs of all. A video if worth ten thousand words.

I had the chance last summer to see Roger Hodgson live in Carcassonne, A Soapbox Opera Fool’s Overture (See the correction footnote below) live was the best moment of the show.

Supertramp may not be your kind of music and I understand this, I can say I love almost all kind of music because I believe in diversity and because music speaks to the soul. But beyond Supertramp, I truly believe in three things:

  1. Our happiness is between our hands. It’s a choice!
  2. The world is the best world right now. You have to live now, not in the past that is gone, not in the future that had not yet happened.
  3. The future is bright. Stop listening to the negative noise of many people, starting with TV. You make your future!

Dear friend, if like me you want to look at the positive side of things and are constantly looking for ways to enhance your days, then I hope you’ll find ideas and posts that will make your day and contribute to your happiness.

Crisis? What Crisis?

 

Correction… I f***d up my mind… A Soapbox Opera is great but I mixed it up with Fool’s Overture, from the album Even in the quietest moments… And by checking my phone, I just realized that I videoed it during the concert in Carcassonne but ran short of memory on my phone. damn it! Anyway, here’s a wonderful version:

For those who have been knowing me for a while, this was one of the pieces I was playing on my piano (when I played, a long, long time ago). and this is the one I put against Bohemian Rhapsody, not A Soapbox Opera… And this gives me an idea of writing about those two symphonic pieces of rock in a future post.

My life, my love, my work

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Happy New Year 2016! To get a new fresh start for this blog, I’m participating in the Blogging 101 of the WordPress Blogging University. As such, during the whole month of January, I’ll have tasks to do to improve the blogging experience, learn new stuffs and increase relevance of this blog to you, my readers. So here’s the result of Day One: Introduce Yourself to the World.

I am Marc, a Geek at heart, as I introduced my about.me page. I am of this generation that knew the world before Internet, who embraced Internet with sheer delight, and is now moving to prudent usage. I have six passions in life: my family, technology, leadership, productivity, public speaking, and watersports. I have a seventh that has been set aside for the time being which is flying, as I am a licensed wing glider pilot, but cannot, yet, find enough time to fulfill this passion.

My passion for technology led me to found my own IT company in the 90’s in Paris before selling them in the 2000’s and joining Microsoft in the sunny island of Mauritius. One year leading to another, I am now the Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft in Africa.

Leadership, productivity and overall personal excellence are dear to my heart, as I believe that with the same 24 hours everyone has, a few uses those to create something bigger than themselves and this require all three.

Public speaking is an old passion of mine that started in high school with theater and continued all along my professional life as an IT instructor, launch event speaker until my TEDx talk and my national winning speeches at Toastmasters convention.

Finally, I am an avid fan of watersports like windsurfing, kitesurfing, wakeboarding, scuba diving, waterskiing, catamaran sailing, to name a few.

So what about blogging? Well blogging is first writing, And writing I did: published 18 books in the 90’s (you can still find some on Amazon, although they are totally outdated), did one eBook and lots of articles in the press and on this blog, for one simple reason: I love writing. Like theater, it started a while back by participating to short stories contests (which I did not win any), then writing my first book in French on IT Training. I did it all by myself using Word for MS-DOS. Yes, I know, may people do not have a clue what DOS is.

So what’s this blog about? I started it after the subprime crisis, because, although a lot of people were negatively impacted by the crisis, it ended up by becoming hysterical in France and across the world, increasing the gloomy future outlook. I named it Crisis, what crisis? because I felt the crisis, although real for the people who lost money everywhere in the world, because of the « global economy » or their properties in the US mainly, the crisis was created or at least kept up by the media, and people were frozen and felt gloomy, just because of the situation painted by media houses. It was recently I realized this was the title of a famous album by Supertramp, one of my favorite bands.

So my purpose with that blog was to create a kind of a platform to show people that their future was between their hands and not of somebody else. Then I used it as a digital platform to my leadership articles published weekly in Le Matinal, until my collaboration with the newspaper stopped and I started the one day, one idea motion that led me to publish one article every day for a full year. Then last year was a struggle to keep the pace and the faith. So now, Blogging 101 provides the opportunity to give my blog a new start. Where it will go, I do not know but future and you will tell!

France, la honte…

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Jour 710 Entre le FHaine qui s’apprète à diriger des régions, certains dirigeants de droite qui tiennent des propos limite ratissant aux extremes et les socialistes qui se comportent comme des gamins apeurés, on en est arrivé à une politique à la Trump: honteuse et dégradante.

La critique est aisée, l’art difficile, certes. Depuis 30 ans, les politiques ont tout fait pour dégouter la base, à la fois les Français qui gagnent le SMIC ou moins, ceux qui gagnent beaucoup plus et qui se sont massivement barrés pour ne pas être tondus (oui, je sais, les politiques nous disent que non, il n’y a pas d’exode fiscal massif, mais on sait maintenant que les politiques sont des acteurs menteurs), et tous les autres au milieu. Et maintenant, ils veulent tous du changement et sont prêts à mettre des poujadistes, racistes et isolationnistes au pouvoir.

Alors, toi Français qui vit en France et va voter dimanche. Une fois dans l’isoloir, rappelle-toi ton grand-père quand il te racontait 33, puis 39, puis 40, puis 41 et Pétain. Sens l’odeur du printemps, du café, du zinc d’un bistrot et dis toi que la France c’est celle qui a abattu les privilèges en 1789, celle qui a inventé les congés payés et c’est le pays que le monde envie par sa douceur de vivre. Alors Dimanche, ne transforme pas la France en un pays que tout le monde regardera effaré par ce que tu as mis en marche. Voter est un droit et un devoir, ne le fait pas le bras tendu, sous prétexte qu’un blonde souriante ça fait moins peur qu’un petit moustachu. Au final, ça va faire la même chose, en pire!

Embrace modern tools or be doomed to disappear

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Day 700 Have you flown a commercial flight recently? If so, you probably noticed it’s a non-smoking flight. I think I have not flown in a plane where smoking is permitted for 20 years. Every time, the flight attendants remind that « this is a non-smoking flight, smoking is not permitted in the toilets… ». However, back in time, smoking was permitted, just not during take-off and landing. This is why we had the no smoking and fasten seat belt signs next to each other.

J 700 - 1

But in 2015, soon to be 2016, why keeping the no smoking sign? Times have changed and there is something we cannot do only during take-off and landing phases: having our electronic devices on. So modern airlines have started to change their signs with an « electronic devices off » sign, replacing the no smoking one. It makes perfect sense. I started to notice this trend a year or two ago. The interesting point though I noticed is there seems to be a correlation between the new sign and the way the airline takes care of its passenger. In other word, if the airline embraces the new sign in its planes, the meals are better, the service is enhanced and the flight attendants feel more caring.

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But it reflects a deeper change: embracing modern tools. Those are the same airlines equipped with modern devices, both for the pilots and the flight attendants. Those are the same that provides power to the passenger at their seats. They have understood that if they want to be a trusted brand, they need to embrace new tools at the same pace as their customers. Companies who will not make the necessary decision to be modern are doomed to disappear not by going bankrupted, not necessarily. They will just become irrelevant and will be swallowed by larger ones and forced to change. Darwin was somehow right.

Plan only three goals and act!

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J 687Day 687. Are you busy? Are you in busyness? Most of us want to achieve great things in life, however, when we reflect back, we sometimes do not see much! Do you know why? Just because we are busy and not focused. A busy person never has time to sit and focus. A busy person is running around creating the impression that he or she is important. But the important thing to do is to create results, whatever the result. It could be playing a wonderful piano piece, or reaching a sales quota, or just spending time with a person you love and care about.

I challenge therefore the busyness inside each of us. For the next 30 days, I challenge you to do the following everyday: sit in the morning at the time you want, grab a cuppa and plan three goals that you want to achieve in the day. Just three. They may require 10 minutes or 12 hours, I do not care. The important piece to respect is the rule of three! Three is the number. Remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail? The scene of the holy hand grenade from Antioch? This is the quote: « Shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. »

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So make three your number, plan those three goals to reach during your day and act. The next morning, reflect on what you achieved and start again. After 30 days, you will have reached 90 goals, more than any average person does in one year. And if you continue after the 30 days, you will have reached over a thousand goals for the year. Simple, powerful. My goals for today:

  1. Write this post
  2. Put my calendar in order for next week
  3. Update the status of my goals for 2015

I will do more than this, but if I do those three important things at this time of my year, I will have had a good day. What will you be doing today ?

We don’t know what we don’t know, accept and stop the BS

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Day 626. We are all humans, so inherently limited in our abilities and designed to act in groups. With this, there are billions of topics we barely know anything about. However, a majority of people has an opinion on those topics. Strange isn’t it? Not really as we have been taught at school to know and we were « punished » with a bad grade if we did not know. Hence our skewed reaction when we do not know, we at least have something to say. The reality is that it’s much better to admit there are things we don’t know when we don’t know them, because it gives us an opportunity to learn.

However, sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know, the unknown unknowns. Those are the most dangerous unknowns to people with certainty. Experience is the best learning tool to uncover unknowns. Unknowns remain and are the main reasons we should always keep an eye on what may happen. Not to freeze action, but to be ready to act if something unexpected happens. It’s important to accept the unknown unknowns and to be ready to act on them if and when they happen. Nobody knows everything, accept to not know everything and especially that you do not know what you do not know. A little bit of modesty keeps our humanity livable.

4 simple steps to make your dreams real

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Day 567. The best dreams are those that can become real. We live in a real world, being happy and fulfilled requires to enjoy the life we live. A lot of people tend to think dreams are meant to stay dreams. I believe dreams are made to become real. This gives a purpose to our efforts, guides our steps, and pushes us to grow. Of course, if you dream humanly impossible dreams, like walking on Pluto for instance, you need to rethink your dreams. However, you can scale them down to stretch you while providing a goal to reach.

So how do make your dreams real. It’s simple, although it may not be easy:

  1. Ensure your dream is achievable. If you dream to walk on Pluto, rethink! A dream can be huge and it has to be achievable, otherwise you will live an unsatisfied life.
  2. List the steps to reach your dream. If you want to fly a jet, look for the possibilities, find the expert, and write the necessary steps you’ll need to go through.
  3. List resources required to make each step real. Go deep, define time and money needed. Once again be realistic, and bold! Once done, you will be light-years ahead most people.
  4. Start now. Imagination without action is hallucination. You did not come that far just to look at the plan and not execute it. It may be hard and long, but it’s worth it! Go!

Achieving your dreams is a worthy endeavor. It pushes you, it propels you and it gives your live a purpose. If life has been tough, dreams can help make it sparkle. Of course, there will be hard times and setback. Failure is necessary for any success as it provides learning. But as it’s been said, succeeding is failing a hundred times and getting back a hundred and one times. Do not wait any longer, each of us deserve to realize our dreams, just create the ideal dream catcher and run with it!

If you are not scared, you are not growing…

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Day 552. Taking risk is an inherent part of our lives. Unfortunately, society has become complacent and education has moved generations of kids in a « no risk » zone, due to increased lawsuits. People are therefore considering risks as something to avoid at all price. However, not taking risks is the greater risk of all. Not taking risk is putting yourself at the mercy of those who will take risks. Not taking risks is wearing the shoes of potential victims. Not taking risks is leaving the best opportunities to others.

Taking risk does not mean betting your house or jumping from a cliff without any knowledge and experience of base jumping. Taking risks is all about moving out of the comfort zone, expanding its borders. Taking risks is jumping into the unknown, leading your life. Of course with risk comes fear that we may fail, fear that we may not be up to the game, fear that we may get hurt. With risk comes potential success, potential win, and potential growth. There’s a price to pay and rewards to win.

With risk comes fear, meaning taking risk is a scary endeavor. The only sensible way to get rid of fear is to confront it, not to ignore it by turning your back. The first skydive will scare you, may be, the second will be smoother. Fear will keep you on your toes, will require that you are always walking on a high wire. Without a little pinch in your belly, you will become complacent and will stop growing, taking the risk of becoming obsolete. Every day, check if you are scared, at least a little, if not, you are just not growing. It’s a choice, but not taking risk is the greatest risk of all!