by Ross Sivertsen | Nov 16, 2010 | Blog, Uncategorized
I read the following article in Psychology Today this morning and it struck a cord with me. A friend of mine once made mention of the concept of ‘Big Hat, No Cattle’, i.e. form over substance.
We are all prejudiced in some ways to appearances. It is a fundamental Darwinian survival instinct. We have the advantage over our other animal counterpart in that we have the ability to see it if we give the predisposition to prejudice our attention. Would qualify as prejudice to prejudice?
Anyway the article basically states four thing to watch out for:
1. Keep in mind that the image of professional doesn’t imply professionalism. It simply means that the business or person is good at presenting an image.
2. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. I learned this the hard way a couple of years ago when I engaged a project with a large well known telecom supplier, thinking that since they were the large 800 lb. gorilla in the market that they knew what they were doing. NOTICE: Big organizations are as dysfunctional, often more so, than small organizations.
3. When in doubt, check references. ‘Nuff said.
4. Trust your own critical thinking skills. Don’t give in to conventional peer pressure either by you superiors or peers. More often than not your ‘smell test’ of your skills. Keeping in mind than often decisions by others are often motivated by political or emotional reasons than facts.
We are all influenced by the cover of the book, but we should clearly look beyond it to really make informed decisions.
http://ping.fm/oHizp
by Ross Sivertsen | Nov 16, 2010 | Blog, Uncategorized
“How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.” — Buckminster Fuller
by Ross Sivertsen | Nov 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
I’m no Ansel Adams. Still life, nature or otherwise. I take snapshots, as I’m guessing most of us do. I’m not really sure I like photography as a hobby, per se.
I just love my friends and family, I love to see them smile, and I love remembering the goods times through snapshots.
That said I like having new and unique ideas to create photos that frame and highlight my loved ones in new and different ways. I actually like using the camera on my iPhone and think it produces fairly good daylight snapshots, though it’s not much good for low light photographs.
This article from the folks over at Lifehacker have written this neat little article on making your weekend photography work better for you.
Smile and say CHEESE!
http://ping.fm/f31ZL
by Ross Sivertsen | Nov 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
This might seem contradictory to someone who likes to hear themselves talk (yours truly), but it is something I continue to work on. Hey, I’m a work in progress, what else can I say?
Two things that always bug me though are, 1. Long voice mail messages, and 2. Long email messages. I read this article on the need to be concise in email communications and I really believe there is a strong message here.
We are bombarded daily with thousands of pieces of information, and long rambling emails are some of the main culprits, this article, from the Lifehacker website (www.Lifehacker.com) is a message of simplicity. The basic notion is to think of email as if they were SMS messages and keep them short, really short; like under five sentences short.
In fact if it can be said in the just the subject line relish say whatever you have to say in just the subject line. One Gmail trick is to add (EOM) to the end of the subject line and gmail won’t even ask for a confirmation it will simply send the message understanding that the message is already at its end.
Well said for a society overloaded in information.
The KISS principle never sounded so good.
http://ping.fm/t3M54
by Ross Sivertsen | Nov 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
3 Days 60 Miles, One Awesome Cause.
I can’t tell you how proud I am of my survivor wife. We finished 829 and 830 out of over 4000 registrants.
But it’s not about the number.
This has been one of the most inspiring weekends Jill and I have experienced.
The last three days I have never seen so many strong women who walked for their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts or themselves.
Like over 80 survivors walking because they refused to give up and be defined by a disease.
Or the amazing 280 men including Bob, the top fundraiser (raising over $17,000 for this event alone AFTER raising money for the Boston 3 Day from earlier this summer), all walking for their wives, mothers, aunts, girlfriends and other loved ones. These people are all, in a word… invincible.
And yet this is a trivial accomplishment compared to the challenges experienced by so many close to me; Jill, her mother Diana, Connie, Sue Ellen, Janise, so many others that have made it… And those that haven’t.
We carried you with us for every one of the over 120,000 steps that made up the sixty miles we travelled.
And we hade some special friends along the way, Kayla, the young woman that travelled all the way from Nappa Valley to walk for her Aunt. The young woman that did the entire sixty miles in a wheel chair.
We saw the cheering sections that drove us forward, and all the crazy costumes, the Harley bikers, pink hair, and yes one pink Gorilla.
Will we do this again next year? You bet, in a heartbeat! But maybe we won’t have to because we will have a cure to this devastating disease.
Freedom of speech being what it is, there is a chance that I won’t get some future job because a potential employer will google me, read what I’m about to say and be offended. I’ll take that risk. (or maybe you’ll get a taste through this message of the perseverance drives me forward). That said my apologies in advance for offending your delicate sensibilities:
-NOTICE TO CANCER-
You took my father and brother from me, you took my mother in law and several friends from me.
You tried to take my wife and my dear friend Connie from me, you tried to take Haven, Sue, Jan, and Elizabeth, but you couldn’t. And this weekend we won, you lost! Fuck you cancer!
We will never give up!
We will never give up!
We will never give up!
