YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

QUESTIONS TO PONDER (Q2P)

Is your brain bubbling with ideas?

Or is it confused?

If so, consider:

What is your cost of confusion?

More importantly, to consider next:

What are you going to do about it?

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

TAKING A BREAK IN VIETNAM, AS WELL AS TO RECHARGE MY BATTERIES!

I am leaving for Ho Chi Minh city this afternoon by Tiger Airways.

Together with my wife & a small bunch of her young nieces/nephews, I am spending 8 days/7 nights on an upcountry tour.

We will take our own sweet time to travel with our own hired mini-bus, & will cover the beautiful beach resort of Nha Trang & the mountain resort of Dalat.

A Singapore couple (my Polytechnic buddy from the sixties, David, & his wife, Jenny) & their young daughter, will also join us in the self-planned upcountry tour.

For a change, I will not carry my laptop & hand-phone. In other words, I need the complete break so that I can recharge my batteries!

I will be back in Singapore on 13th June, while my wife will stay back for another two weeks.

As far as this weblog is concerned, I have already scheduled a preset upload of the daily dosage of selected excerpts from the braindancing quintet of Dilip Mukerjea, as well as from his bookazines & posters during my absence. That's all.

THE PATHWAY TO SELF-ACTUALISATION (A.E.I.O.U)

AWARENESS: (initial recognition of value in oneself and of connectivity to all else; a sense of peace)

EMOTION: (positive feeling and a sense of cosmic well-being; quiet joy)

INTENTION: (establish clear purpose in journeying towards significance)

OWNERSHIP: (enlightened by purpose, assuming responsibility for oneself and for one's place in the cosmos)

UNDERSTANDING: (awakening towards a higher purpose and a new sense of awareness)

Corporate bodies design their destinies with statements for vision, missions, goals and strategies. This is mainly a bureaucratic exercise, often meant to satisfy auditors and shareholders. In some rare cases, they do live up to their intentions. But, what needs to inhabit the core of very employee's heart, is a sense of purpose.

Everything else has been crafted as something you can eventually achieve. But a purpose is something you fulfill. This happens in every molecule of your heart, each moment that you are in harmony with who you really are.

When you know your purpose for being, you experience epiphany: the vision, mission, goals and strategies fall right in place!

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

DISCOVER YOUR GENIUS AT THE SINGAPORE BOOK FAIR 2009

I am very pleased to announce that the whole current range of 'The Braindancer Series' (set of four) as well as 'The InGenius Series' (set of four) of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea is available for sale at the Singapore Book Fair 2009:

Venue: Suntec City Convention Hall #402-403, Level 4;

Opening Days/Hours: 29th May to 7th June 2009; 2pm to 10m on 29th May 2009; 10am to 10pm from 30th May to 7th June 2009;

Stand: #4M081, under the trade name of 'EMIT ASIA';

The book fair is reportedly the largest English & Chinese book fair in the region.

Also, Dilip Mukerjea's information-rich Braindancing Quintet, comprising 'Unleashing Genius', 'Building Brainpower', 'Brain Symphony', 'Surfing the Intellect', & 'Taleblazers' is also on display as well as for sale at the stand.

May your brain continue to blossom with all the 'Books of Brilliance' from Dilip Mukerjea!

As you go through them, you will automagically discover more and more of your genius within you!

POSTERWORKS, by Dilip Mukerjea

[All the digital images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.

Digital images from the author - in high resolution, vector graphics; hand-crafted but digitally enhanced, & arranged in different library categories, to suit both corporate & educational domains - are readily available for outright purchase.

Please contact the author at dilipmukerjea@gmail.com for more information about pricing & delivery.

Requests for custom engineering designs to suit clients' particular requirements are also welcome.]

LEARNING FROM MOTHER NATURE

Children need to be constantly nourished by encouragement ... it is the oxygen of the soul.

Like the caterpillar that metamorphoses into a butterfly, children too will take wings and soar.

The nature of their flight depends upon early encouragement and by inspiring them in all their endeavours!

[Excerpted from the 'Kinderblossoms' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Challenging Dominances:

1) Use your non-dominant hand for writing and drawing;

2) Throw a ball with your non-dominant hand; learn to juggle;

3) Write a problem down with your dominant hand, and the answers with your non-dominant hand;

4) When you KNOW something for 'sure' check again and again, to see if there is something more that you could add to your knowing;

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy' by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

HOW TO MIND MAP: A QUICK VISUAL OVERVIEW

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

POSITIVELY NEGATIVE!

Little Tommy informs his Mum: “Ma, I don’t think I can pass my maths exams tomorrow.”

Mum: “Now, now, Tommy, what about that positive thinking course you went to at school? Just think positive and you’ll be fine!”

Tommy: “OK Mum, I’m SURE I can’t pass my maths exams tomorrow!”

Comment:

Be careful about clichés.

Positive thinking is positively effective when one is positively positive.

Here, Tommy is positively negative!

Positive thinking must lead to positive doing; that is the route to success.

[Excerpted from the 'Kinderblossoms' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Make sure your daily vocabulary does not contain these limiting words, as they will disempower you:

1. Impossible;

2. I'll try; [Remember, what Master Yoda said to Luke Skywalker in 'Star Wars': "No. Try not. DO or DO NOT! There's no try."]

3. If only...;

4. Ought;

5. Difficult;

6. I hope; [A trainer friend of mine loves to say that "hope is for people who are hopeless!"]

7. But...;

8. Should;

9. I can't...;

10. I have to...;

11. However;

12. Doubt;

13. Hard;

14. I wish...;

15. Wrong;

16. Fear; [Remember, fear is 'false evidence appearing real']

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Become Sense-sational:

1) Change the normal colour-scheme of yourt clothes;

2) Listen to music from another culture;

3) Touch someone with a gesture of kindness;

4) Use aromatheraphy essences to liven up your environment;

5) Try a new cuisine;

6) Use colour in your notes;

7) Draw as often as possible;

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy' by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S MINDMAP GALLERY

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

CINQUAINS

This is a technique for composing “a fun form of poetry.”

The word “poet” is derived from the Greek poietes, meaning “poet,” and also “creator.”

The word “cinquain” comes from the French for “five” (cinq) and pertains to a poem consisting of five lines in total; no more, no less.

There are a set of rules, which help anyone become an instant poet of the fifth dimension. Try it and feel joyous. Kick-start your creativity!

Line 1 must contain only one word, and it must be a noun.
Line 2 has two descriptive words (adjectives).
Line 3 has three action words (verbs).
Line 4 needs you to make a statement in four words (feelings)
Line 5 winds up the show with one word that means the same, or has some close connection to the noun on the first line.

For example, we could have:

Magic
Mysterious, Wondrous
Appearing, Disappearing, Reappearing,
What a strange experience!
Superfantasticacious!

Pizzas
Flat, Round,
Sizzling, Swirling, Spinning,
Food for fun kids;
Frisbeeee!

Zoology
Extinct, Extant,
Evolving, Morphing, Interrelating;
The study of animals;
BIOLOGY!

Arithmetic
Simple, Complex;
Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying
And oh! Division too!
Calculations!

Now write your own Cinquains!

NOTE: Cinquains are powerful learning tools for students of all ages (adults too), to creatively distill their understanding of diverse ideas and concepts. The deliberately concise 5-line format forces us to slash all inessential details and home in on only the most critical information.

Whatever we focus on, from arithmetic to zoology, we must express the essence of our topic within the eleven words of the cinquain.

This means that we have to think deeply, clearly, and creatively, so as to come up with the core elements of our subject matter within the tight structure of the cinquain.

By doing so, we challenge ourselves to create masterpieces of original work that can stay in our memories, for as long as we wish!

Good thinking leads to easy learning!

[Excerpted from the 'Thinkerbelles' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Have the Time of Your Life:

1) Set aside 15 minutes a day to be totally alone in 'your own space';

2) Spend at least 30 minutes a day reading a book;

3) When waiting in queues, sketch the people or scene around you;

4) Develop your intuition and endeavour to wake up just befor eyour alarm clock does;

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy' by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A BIAS FOR ACTION

"A key challenge for today’s companies – and for the individuals within them – is to build a culture of action . . .

If you want the future to be better than the present, you have to start working on it immediately.

Remember: What you want is better than, not optimal.

Your job is to do something today that’s better than what you did yesterday.

And to do something tomorrow that’s better than what you did today."

~ Jeffrey Pfeffer, Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; also a monthly columnist for Business 2.0 magazine and the author of ten books – including, 'The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action';

THE X-Y GRAPH

A simple way to present information is to tell it as a story on a simple L-shaped, x-y graph. The horizontal leg of the L is known as the x-axis, and the vertical leg, the y-axis.

For example:

In the graph to the right, our ‘story’ shows that when we are not having fun whilst learning, our speed of learning is slow, Point A; when we are having fun (our teachers are fantastic!), our speed of learning is fast! (Point B).

Can YOU now create some positive graphs such as the one in this example?

In the graph to the left, our ‘story’ shows that when we have viruses in our minds (when we are nervous, anxious, worried, and think negatively) our chances for success in life can be low, Point A; when we stay positive, happy, and are full of fun, we have no mind viruses; we can think better, learn faster, and therefore have high chances of success! So, stay happy, and brilliant! (Point B).

There are people who find it difficult to distinguish between the x and y axes, so, on the next page, I have created a story to help you recall this information ... even five hundred years from now!


Just imagine....Your Mum asked you to take some eggs to the kitchen; you, being wonderful, readily agreed to help her. Unfortunately, as you were carrying your cargo to its destination, you slipped! Crash! Smash! Splash!

Your Mum, seeing the eggs (sounds like X) on the floor (horizontal axis), screamed: “Whyyyyy have you messed up my kitchen?”

(Whyyyyy sounds like Y, and since her voice was rising and rising, meaning vertically, we know that the y-axis is the one that’s vertical!). (The vertical line in the letter ‘Y’ could also help to remember the orientation of the y-axis).

Thus, the x-axis is always horizontal, and the y-axis is always vertical.

And a bonus for earning this snippet of information: Your Dad, meanwhile, was dozing away in his armchair, oblivious to the drama in the kitchen. Zzzzzzzzzz! As you can see in the imagery above, he is shown diagonally, on what we know to be the z-axis!

Therefore, we now know that the z-axis is the one that is always diagonal (normally visible in 3-D mode). Voila!

Create stories from your learning material.You will soon be acing all your subjects!

[Excerpted from the 'Thinkerbelles' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Be Outrageous:

1) Give your 'enemy' a present (Not a Trojan Horse!);

2) Spontaneously buy flowers for someone you like;

3) Invite a nunch of kids to you roffice and show them around; get them to brainstorm a major 'situation' facing your company;

4) Set up an Al Fresco Ideas Station in the centre of town, and ask pedestrians to give you ideas; jot these down on a flipchart set up for them to seee;

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy' by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

RAPID RECAP: QUESTIONS TO PONDER (Q2P), FOLLOW BY, ACTION TO TAKE (A2T)

Ask yourself the following questions:

• In what ways am I a business innovator? What expertise have I gained? What tools am I equipped with?

• Do I have access to innovation role models? Are there any innovation mentors in my organisation who will nuture me, and help me to ignite innovation?

• Does my company culture encourage experimentation? If so, how feasible is it for me to get financial support to pursue my ideas? How many levels of bureaucracy would I have to go through?

• Is expertise in innovation a core component of my job description? Does a part of my compensation depend on my innovation performance?

• Do my organisation’s management processes support my efforts as an innovator, or hinder it?

• Can I confidently declare that my organisation has established an all-encompassing, corporatewide innovation system?

If your answer is NO to any of these questions, start doing something about it, and integrate the above steps into a business strategy for continual returns on innovation!

[Excerpted from The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

THE PIKE PHENOMENON

The pike is a fish that has a peculiar type of memory! Place it on one side of an aquarium that is partitioned in half with a see-through glass divider.

On the other side of the glass divider, have plenty of minnows (small fish) swimming happily.

In time, the pike starts to get hungry, and makes its way energetically towards the minnows.

Crash! It bangs its snout against the glass partition. It keeps trying … and keeps crashing its snout, until the pain becomes too much.

The pike gradually ‘understands’ and ‘learns’ that the minnows can’t be reached; in fact, it believes the task is impossible.

Now, if you remove the glass partition, astonishingly, the pike swims all around the aquarium, ignoring the minnows… because it ‘remembers’ that it is impossible to reach the minnows.

What does The Pike Phenomenon tell us about ourselves?

Write your ideas on a sheet of paper.

Here are some suggestions:

1. When things get difficult, we get stressed, and can no longer function well.

2. Perhaps this stress causes us to not see differences or changes in situations.

3. We behave as if we still know everything about a situation.

4. Our reactions are not well thought out.

5. We still behave the way we would in the past; we remain rigid, or stubborn.

6. Remaining stubborn prevents us from considering different ways to solve a problem.

7. We start believing that we have been hit by bad luck!

8. In this case, we feel that it is as if the environment has attacked us!

9. Under pressure, we fail to test difficulties we feel we cannot overcome.

10. These perceived constraints have now imprisoned us!

[Excerpted from the 'Thinkerbelles' edition of The Ingenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Excavating & Piggybacking Ideas:

1) Present a challenge facing you to (i) a child (ii) a taxi driver (iii) a pensioner;

2) Establish an Ideas Piggybank and aim to hit a specific target every week;

3) Ask a member of the opposite sex to offer suggestions concerning your 'problem';

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy' by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A WISE QUOTE FOR MONDAY MORNING

"The way you activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about results you want to create. When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise."

~ Robert Fritz, composer, film-maker & organisational consultant; also, author of several wonderful books, including 'Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life';

A PICTURE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS: NUTCASE WISDOM

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

IN SEARCH OF PERSONAL MASTERY

In his book, 'Personal Brilliance: Mastering the Everyday Habits That Create a Lifetime of Success', executive coach Jim Canterucci shares some interesting strategies on how to leverage on our innate abilities to attain personal mastery.

He has identified them as 'Awareness', 'Curiosity', 'Focus' & 'Initiative'. I concur with his selection.

He actually prefers to use the term "catalysts" to describe them, which he also elaborates as follows, with some of my personal comments:

1) Awareness:

- "Awareness involves self-awareness first, being conscious of your environment, and being cognizant of the problem at hand";

- for me, there are two critical aspects to take into consideration:

a) one, is to "be here now", or to be "in the present moment" at all times;

b) the other, is to enhance your perceptual sensitivity to the environment;

so that, with both in place, you know exactly what's going on around you &/or out there in your visual horizon;

- as a matter of fact, self-awareness is a very important aspect of emotional intelligence;

2) Curiosity:

- "Curiosity is actively exploring the environment, asking questions, and investigating possibilities";

- For me, it boils down to the sense of wonder, follow by the sense of discovery, like that of a child;

- A word of caution, though: be child-like, but don't be childish;

- it's important to understand that curiosity always starts with interest, & interest permeates all learning;

- hence, it's always good to develop & broaden one's personal interests beyond one's normal scope of work, as the attendant activities are often driven by passion & enthusiasm;

3) Focus:

- "Focus is giving 360 degree attention to what you are doing now, allowing access to any possible innovation";

- We all know that our mind follows the direction of our current dominant thought, & so it is important to focus on the most important things in our lives;

- Always ask yourself: what do I choose to see? where do I direct your attention?

- I recall celebrity coach Anthony Robbins once said to this effect:

"One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power ..."

4) Initiative:

- "Initiative is necessary to both allow innovation to work and to ultimately implement the solution";

- To me, this means action-mindedness; that's to say, we got to move our butt & go kick some butt, so to speak;

- I reckon, in execution, initiative is the distinction between wishful thinking & willful doing;

For more information, please read the book, &/or visit the author's personal weblog.

Readers can also check out the online Personal Brilliance Quotient (PBQ) to see how you fare on the four catalysts.

POSTERWORKS, by Dilip Mukerjea

[All the digital images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.

Digital images from the author - in high resolution, vector graphics; hand-crafted but digitally enhanced, & arranged in different library categories, to suit both corporate & educational domains - are readily available for outright purchase.

Please contact the author at dilipmukerjea@gmail.com for more information about pricing & delivery.

Requests for custom engineering designs to suit clients' particular requirements are also welcome.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Verbal Stimulation

1) Build your vocabulary; learn at least three new words a day;

2) Do a crossword puzzle every day;

3) Play Scrabble;

4) Develop your general knowledge and apply it to the game 'Pictionary';

5) Cultivate a conversation with a total stranger; aim for three a week;

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for the Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerkea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A PICTURE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS: YOUR BRAIN'S TWO HEMISPHERES

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

THE CENTURY OF THE BRAIN!

Your brain is a creamy coloured, wrinkled object, feels like a raw egg, and can fit in the palm of your hand.

Brain cells are known as neurons, of which there are roughly 100 billion...that’s the number 1 with eleven zeros after it!

Each of these neurons connects to thousands of other neurons! That’s as many connections as there are stars in The Milky Way!


A piece of brain the size of a pinhead contains approximately 60,000 neurons!

A child’s brain is a miracle learning organism. By the age of two, it has twice as many connections between neurons, and uses twice as much food energy as an adult brain.

Every thought a child thinks ripples across his or her brain’s fabulous network of nerves.

[Excerpted from the 'Brainbabes' edition of The Ingenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Attention all parents out there! You are your child's first teacher.

Learn as much as you can about maximum brainpower so that you can serve as an effective guide as well as active facilitator in your child's development during his or her growing years.

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

[continue from the Last Post]

Imagineering:

1) Imagine having a conversation with one of your role models from up to a thousand years ago;

2) Imagine using your computer skills in the year 500 BC;

3) Visualise yourself flying through the cosmos;

4) See yourself accomplishing three major successes in areas you consider 'impossible';

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for the Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerkea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

CAN YOU FIND THE HIDDEN LION?

[Source: Interesting Illusions]

CAN YOU FIND THE HIDDEN TIGER?

Start looking at this picture with your nose close to the screen. You'll see puzzle pieces, some in the shape of animals. Now keep increasing your distance from the screen until you can see the hidden tiger!

[Source: Planet Perplex]

BOUNDARIES OF EXISTENCE & THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

Most of us are probably familiar with the 'Nine Dots Matrix' exercise, where we are specifically asked to connect all nine dots with just four lines without lifting the pencil or pen.

Notice that the only way to connect all the nine dots with just four lines is to go beyond the imaginary boundaries of the dots. This is where the saying 'Thinking Out of the Box' most likely came about.

Dilip Mukerjea, writing in the introduction of 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', has drawn an analogy from this simple exercise, using circles instead of dots, to help readers to tackle challenges and opportunities.

Most people often unwittingly box themselves up, when dealing with the world out there, as if they were boxed in a coffin of existence.

The 'Nine Dot Matrix' exercise gives a good illustration.

Conversely, the author argues in his wonderful book, when people perform with energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial zeal, they emerge as titans of the human spirit. This is because they believe they are contributing to a purpose outside of and larger than themselves.

Below, the author shows how you can liberate yourself from the straitjacket of dead souls, so to speak!



Henceforth, the commonly perceived Boundaries of Existence is more than just these nine miserable circles above.

When trapped, escape at first seems impossible. It then appears improbable.

Keep thinking.

Your mind will generate an INSIGHT about the present; this swiftly connects to your Vision.

Breakthrough!

Your Vision now links up with your FORESIGHT about the future.

Keep moving.

Propelled by your Vision, SUCCESS becomes inevitable.

Don’t stop! Keep moving.

Ask yourself: “Am I successfull, or am I a success fool?”

The real box of life is out there, infinite and replete with possibilities, not a coffin of dead souls.

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

CLIMBING THE LADDER

At the bottom of the ladder, on the ground level, write down your Current reality, i.e. the way things really are at the moment for you.

On the rungs of the ladder, starting from the lowest, write down what needs to be done so you can climb to the next rung, until you eventually attain your Peak Vision above the top of the ladder.

The number of rungs is of course, a variable, and will change according to every situation.

Each rung of the ladder provides you with a firm footing, a launching pad, to climb higher. The rungs help you to recognise and overcome barriers along the way to the summit.

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

IF YOU WISH TO BE MORE CREATIVE

Education without creativity is as much use as life without oxygen!

All children are born creative, but many are being educated out of their creative birthright!

Creativity is the ability to cast light upon darkness, to see with fresh eyes, to come up with ‘silly’ solutions to serious problems!

Creativity is having fun with life!

Creativity is helping the world become a better place for all life on our fragile planet!

If you wish to be more creative:

SEE: Imagine what you want. See the shape, colour, and size of this item. Use all your senses and whilst seeing your dream, also smell, touch, listen to, and if possible, taste it! Make it funny! Or weird! Be sense-ational!

DRAW: Make a picture of what is in your mind...you are then imaging what you are imagining!

THINK: What must you do to close the gap between where you are and what you want.

PLAN: What do you need for you to fulfill your dream? Ask for help if you need to.

[Excerpted from the 'Goldenminds' edition of The Ingenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectul property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES: THE LONG TAIL EFFECT

Writing in the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines, Dilip Mukerjea exhorts:

Just remember, yesterday’s peacock is today’s feather duster!

Success can lead to failure, and what failed yesterday, could succeed spectacularly tomorrow.

This is the essence of the Long Tail Effect.

Interestingly, the expression ‘The Long Tail’ was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities...for substantial returns.

Anderson has later extended it into the book 'The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More' (2006).

He has argued that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.

The internet is having a profound effect on consumer market dynamics, and it's breaking all the rules.

In fact, for any industry where distribution can be expanded using the internet and the logistics of delivery can also be facilitated, the Long Tail can flip the current market upside down.

The Long Tail Effect happens when the exponentially growing availability of stuff, like news, consumer products, entertainment, and even software, becomes readily available to well, just about everyone.

So, to recap in a nut shell, when a shift like this takes place, there will always be opportunity in the marketspace.

[For more information about the Long Tail Effect, please go to Chris Anderson's weblog on the WIRED Blog Network.

All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

DO YOU KNOW . . .?

[Excerpted from the 'Igniting Innovation' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

A QUICK ACTION PLAN TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR INFINITE CREATIVE CAPACITY

Inject variety into Your Life:

1) Listen to a different audio channel;

2) Visit an art gallery or a museum;

3) Take a different route to work;

4) get to know more about a subject you "hate";

5) Phone a total stranger and develop a conversation with him/her;

6) Visit an orphanage;

7) Take up jazz dancing;

8) Close your eyes and get to really "know" your way around your house;

[to be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for the Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerkea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

START YOUR OWN BRAIN CLUB!

The era of womb-to-tomb single-career scenarios is over.

The executive of tomorrow must learn as much as possible, about as much as possible, as fast as possible.

Students today are fundamentally different: many are over-stimulated but under-aroused.

Electronic technology, in particular, has influenced them to demand more from education.

Brain Clubs can be designed to meet their needs. Teachers, and parents, can learn from students and thus be inspired to teach the way students love to learn!

Remember: Play Power is more powerful than Power Play!

THINKING IN PICTURES

Our intellectual blueprint is as individual as a fingerprint.

Most of us think in pictures. Imagine the input of the spatial brain into such a process? Some of the greatest thinkers of all time were visual thinkers. Einstein is a prime example of a visual thinker blessed with supreme Spatial Intelligence.

Spatial Intelligence is our overall intelligence which deals with the visual information (images, symbols, maps, plans, etc) that is almost always a major part of all data the brain processes . . . such as the ability to recognise an object when it is seen from different positions, the ability to imagine movement or internal displacement along the parts of a configuration, the ability to retain configurations and the ability to transform these configurations.

Central to this intelligence are the capabilities to perceive the visual world accurately - encode visual stimuli and to perform transformations and modifications upon one’s initial perceptions - mental manipulation.

One also needs to be able to recreate aspects of one’s visual experience, even in the absence of relevant physical stimuli.

‘The words of language, as they are written and spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.’

~ Albert Einstein;

Many educators have largely ignored the need for visualisation skills, but researchers have identified almost 100 different careers where spatial visualisation skills are essential for success.

It is within spatial intelligence that Psychologist Howard Gardner locates the “ability to discern similarities across diverse domains.”

He praises Lewis Thomas’s expressive analogies between biological phenomena and human concerns. He connects this to the “images” underlying many scientific theories, such as “Darwin’s vision of the tree of life, Freud’s notion of the unconscious as submerged like an iceberg, and John Dalton’s view of the atom as a tiny solar system.”

‘’You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

~ Mark Twain;

SPATIAL EXERCISE:

The mathematician, Dr. August Möbius (1790-1886) discovered this one-sided surface that became known as the Möbius Strip or Möbius Band. (Image to the right)

If you start with a strip of paper (image on the left) and join the ends, you get a simple band (image on the right). But if you give the strip of paper a single twist, as shown here on the left, and then join the ends, you get a Möbius Strip.

Can you visualise, and then draw at least ten different spatial configurations of a Möbius Strip?

Some suggestions for the Möbius Strip Exercise

A popular limerick is associated with the Mobius marvel:

“A mathematician confided
That a Mobius band is one-sided,
And you’ll get quite a laugh,
If you cut one in half,
For it stays in one piece when divided.”

Some examples of technical applications where Mobius Strips have been used:

• as conveyor belts that last longer because the entire surface area of the belt gets the same amount of wear;
• as continuous-loop recording tapes (to double the playing time);
• in the manufacturing of fabric computer printer and typewriter ribbons, allowing the ribbon to be twice as wide as the printhead while using both half-edges evenly;
• in medicine, to restore emotional balance, easier breathing and more coordinated movements;

Make a rift in the center of gravity of the human body (going from one leg to another) and at the same time moving the arms while turning the body. The center of gravity moves while taking one, two or three steps from heel to toe during one continuous outward breath.

During one, two, three or four steps back, toe to heel. The interval between the inhalation and exhalation is made while keeping the human body balanced on the right or left leg; bending the knee of the supporting (bearing) leg and moving ahead or bending the other leg’s knee while moving the arms in the trajectory of a Mobius strip.

(Source: Dr Abram Teplitskiy)

[Excerpted from the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]