:: MIS Insights ::

I got this from the Jay’s talk in the last HP WSNT-BIDS coffee talk. When giving feedback to other people, here’s a useful formula to get you started:

When you [insert action that person did], it [insert impact to you or others here]. Can we [suggest what can be done about the feedback] next time?

For example:

When you answered a phone call in the last meeting, it distracted the audience. Can we silent our phones and avoid answering them in the succeeding meetings?

The objective of a feedback is to stop an undesirable event from happening. In this case, we want the person to stop answering phones during meetings because it is distracting. The following, however, is not a feedback:

You work slow like a turtle on a leisure stroll. Can’t you work any faster?

Where the former statement had a specific and repeatable action, the last one was very subjective. Instead of using a verb (an action word), it used the adjective lazy. The problem when using adjectives is that they are descriptive words based on personal interpretations. What might be slow for one person might be too fast for another. The following would be a better form of feedback, I suppose:

If you keep submitting your reports past the deadline, other deliverables dependent on your task gets delayed also. Can we agree on a timetable which we can use to satisfy the customer’s expectation on a timely manner?

Feedbacks aren’t only meant to prevent bad stuff from happening again though. They’re also there to keep good things happening over and over. Here’s what I told Bacchus during the event:

When you invited me for coffee during my first week at HP, I felt very welcome and good about the company. I appreciate the gesture in the same way that I know new hires will too.

The following though, is not a feedback:

You’re a good Project Manager. Keep it up!

In contrast to:

Your persistent and encouraging mobilization of resources has helped the team deliver quality work on time. Others can learn a thing or two from what you do best.

Giving feedback takes practice though. It’s a form of communication that’s devoid of emotion. It’s not something you do once in a while and expect to do correctly every time. As Filipinos who put a lot of value in what they hear and say, objective and constructive feedbacks might take some practice. I’d recommend doing it every day. Try it out with your seatmate. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

Wikimedia is addicting. I just installed it in my laptop and I’ve been using it whenever I get the free time.

With the huge amount of information that I have had to digest lately, Wikimedia is a godsend for me. You see, I like taking notes (ya rly!). Unfortunately, there are times when I can be disorganized with my notes. I tend to write things down wherever I can - my “official” notebook, “unofficial” notebook, laptop notepad, desktop notepad, google notepad, email, pieces of paper, etc.

With such decentralized data, it can take some time for me to get the data that I need - if I ever find it. Wikimedia helps me by storing all my notes in one storage location. So what’s the difference between noting it in Wikimedia and writing it down in Microsoft Word / Open Office Writer / a single Notebook? Personally, the main selling point of Wikipedia is its ability to expose and organize unstructured data.

You can be organized at the atomic (article) level and leave it there to organize itself. Using links and references between articles, data organization will take care of itself. If you forgot where you placed your articles, you can use the search function which provides results that have relevance ratings. You can use tags and keywords to classify data. These metadata are the building blocks that business intelligence tools use to expose gathered data. In addition to that, data can also be accessed via networks - sharing the good stuff to others.

For people conscious with the concept of Knowledge Management Systems, knowledge captured in distributable media is like a Christmas Bonus multiplied by ten.

Businesses have always had to deal with system upgrade decisions - whether it be in the realm of hardware or software. In the world of constantly evolving information systems, developments proceed in a yin and yang process. At one side, power-hungry and information-crunching software creates the demand for monster hardware. On the other side, overqualified hardware with its abundant computing power allows the improvement of complex software.

Upgrading is a balancing act between cost and risk. As Michael Hillenbrand puts it, managers want to know how much will it cost if I upgrade (cost) and what can happen if I don’t upgrade (risk)?

Many decision-makers (read: managers and accountants) are put off by the cost involved with upgrades:

• Licensing Costs (per machine, per account, per head, per processor, etc.)
• Training (new way of doing things might mean re-training existing users)
• Interruption to Business (installation of hardware and software might cause some downtime during deployment)
• Actual Costs (Planning, Implementation, Support for new system and process)

However, for some, upgrading can address several business concerns too:

• Support (When is the End-of-Life product support of the software? Is the hardware still available? Some legacy software are machine-dependent)
• Compliance (Is our software compliant with our third party supporting software? Will our existing systems pass security and functionality audits?)
• Competitive advantage (Actual benefits that we get from using the new software or hardware [less effort or time needed to provide same or better quality of work] )

With the high impact of software and hardware that we use in our work, knowing the reasons why and why not to upgrade is essential in keeping your business profitable.

A recent article from CNN talks about uber-rich people buying submarines:

In a world of $100-million mega yachts, luxury submarines attract the ultra rich for one of two reasons. Some buyers are just looking for another realm they can conquer with their checkbooks. But many are genuine undersea enthusiasts.

If I had a billion dollars, I’d probably get a private submarine too. After setting up schools, hospitals and buying a region of the Philippines, I’d go diving in the Marianas Trench and look for the fabled 80-foot squids and other sea monsters! People might have conquered Mt Everest and outer space, so I’ll just be the first person to touchdown at the deepest part of the world.

What about you? How would you spend your billion dollars?

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about the history of the Hard Drives that went through my life. Reading through the post made me realize that it’s been two years since I bought an internal hard drive [160gigs] and a year since I acquired an external hard drive [200gigs]. This year, I’d like to introduce a new member to my data storage family: A 320 Gigabyte Internal Seagate SATA hard drive

320 Gigabytes?! What the hell are you going to do with all that space?

• Pictures. I take around 4 gigabytes worth of pictures every month. You can double that amount once I do some post-processing.
• Anime. When you don’t have time to sit down in front of a television on a regular basis, downloading shows can be the next best thing to a Two-Piece Crispy Chicken Joy with Extra Rice during Saturday lunch time.
• Ego. I’m going to brag about it. My Hard Drive is bigger than yours.

Installation Notes for those who want to join in with the fun

• Cables - when you buy your hard drive, make sure you go home with a SATA HD power cable and a SATA data cable (sometimes, you have to buy this too ~ doesn’t make sense why it isn’t bundled right away)
• BIOS - make sure that your SATA is enabled in your BIOS settings. Otherwise, it won’t get detected.
• Windows Detection - if you can see your hard drive during startup but can’t see your hard drive in windows, check out Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management (Local) and make sure your drive is active, formatted and healthy.
• IDE - if you have to run your SATA HD alongside an IDE HD, experiment where your IDE HD is plugged in the IDE cable.

And yes. After just five days, it’s half-full already.

After three days of orientation seminar at HP, I am now ready to learn the tricks and trades of Printer Repair Procedures

I am part of the Supplier Portal Team, which is under the Web Services New Technology (WSNT) department of HP, based at Ortigas.

Very Nice!

DAY 1
- The early bird gets the cap. Was at HP RS 6:55 AM. Call time was at 9AM.
- Saw the Entrepreneurial beginnings of HP: “If you want to learn how to become an entrepreneur, work here first”
- 6 Cups of Choco Latte

DAY 2
- Gave up the Cap. Pipboy does not live on caps alone. Was at RS 7:05 AM.
- Guideline to Handling Customers: Ask, Engage and Follow Through
- Guideline to Thrive at the Corporate World: Practice Respect and Restraint
- Proposed “TransHPormers” as our onboarding batch name. Too bad it didn’t get enough votes.
- 5 Cups of Choco Latte

DAY 3
- No Cap today. Was at SMPC 7:10 AM
- Met my buddy - Sym! Very nice and helpful person.
- Met most of the SMPC managers - cheerful and “powerful” crowd they are.
- Saw familiar faces at work - Jonats (3d modeling sensei) and Punzki (CS Warlord)
- Finished half of the Required e-lectures
- 1 Cup of Choco Latte, 1 Cup of Caramel

Finishing my Requirements!

TIN - Check! I could hardly remember the route I took five years ago to get to BIR’s Novaliches branch but get one, I did. Thanks Yumi for the directions!

SSS - Check! Never knew I had one until the security guard at SSS pointed me to the upper left section of my E1 Form. Thanks Liz for dragging me to CTC 2 years ago and getting me this.

NBI clearance - Incomplete. What are the chances that there’s another Fernando Mendizabal registered in the Philippines? Guess right and you win a prize!

School Transcript - Incomplete. I need to get one next week once I go to Ateneo for my 621 Moro tradition

Medical Certificate - Incomplete. I’m going back to Makati tomorrow for my medical check-up. They didn’t allow family doctors - so, I need to be checked by their recommended clinic.

Truckload of Forms (Maxicare, BPI, Insurance, etc) - Incomplete. I guess I’ll start on it tomorrow at the Clinic while waiting.

For the later part of last week, I’ve been into stocks. Here are some interesting numbers:

2 - the number of days that I’ve been trading
4 - the number of different types of company stocks I’ve held
1.5 - average life span of a stock in my hands (in hours)

.24 - the cheapest stock that I’ve bought
68.50 - the most expensive blue chip I’ve bought

3 - the number of indicators that I’m currently using
300 - number of spartans that faced the persians

9,000 - amount in Pesos that I lost because I got distracted for 30 seconds while trading
10,000 - my favorite board lot
90,000 - most number of shares that I owned for a single stock

2% - net gain despite all the fumbles I made
40,000% - my target net gain before this year ends

Got my L33TSig. It’s a little picture/banner that one can use to display information about their computer. People usually get it for their forum signatures. Here’s mine:

How to install and configure L33tSig (Windows):

1. Visit L33tSig’s website.
2. Register at their website so you can download the L33tSig application (or client). I recommend the executable installer.
3. After you’ve downloaded the client, install.
4. Run the L33TSig application. You will see three tabs / panels ~ User Preferences, Signature Preferences, Proxy Options. Get into each of them and configure to your needs.
   • User Preferences - fill in your username and password (the one you used to register at L33tSig’s website) and frequency of your signature updates. Previewing your sig text will only work once you’ve configured your Signature Preferences. (screenshot)
   • Signature Preferences - you will have seven lines of displayable information. Configure as you wish using the dropdowns on the left (screenshot). Don’t worry about the items on the right, they are filled up automatically once you’ve chosen from the drop down list. After configuring this page, you have to click on “OK” or “Apply” to save your settings. Otherwise, previews in the User Preferences won’t work.
   • Proxy Options - if you’ve got one, fill it in with the appropriate information. If you don’t know whether you have one or what your proxy information is, ask your System Administrator.
5. Go back to L33TSig’s website, log-in to your account, and look for the settings link on the left sidebar of the page.
6. In this page, you can change how your L33TSig’s background looks. Most importantly, at the bottom of the page, are your Bulletin Board and HTML codes that will display your signature.

And that’s it. Have Fun!

I’m compiling a list of reasons why establishments, organizations and people don’t like their picture being taken:

Terrorism - think train stations. Key infrastructures like train stations don’t want to give away their “physical layout”. I don’t think anyone would appreciate terrorists poring over an image, discussing where a bomb is placed best. Hmm… maybe if LRT2 station gets more than its current 8-camera per station setup, this rule might get lifted…

Copyright - think malls. Buildings are expensive. Besides the cost of brick and mortar, there’s landscaping, architectural and design fees (to name a few) invested in the construction of buildings (like malls). Unless all your malls look the SaMe, malls are privy with their setup. Of course, most of the time, one only needs to ask permission from the Administration…

Publicity - think restaurants. I don’t think there are any establishments out there that doesn’t want FREE advertising. Unfortunately, in a country ridden with popularity shows, one rarely gets good publicity without paying for it. Therefore, some establishments would rather have no publicity rather than any kind of publicity. A random photograph might get published at a playful magazine and get the establishment associated with playful things…

Souls - think soul-stealing. In this day and age of digital and affordable photography, stealing souls by taking pictures has become widespread and convenient. For some who have plans for the after life, taking pictures of them is a no-no. However, most people out there don’t mind having their pictures taken, as long as you ask permission …

Can you think of other reasons why some don’t want their pictures taken?