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Vilius – November 1, 2008
One day of recent summer I met an old great friend Guoda. We love to meet occasionally and discuss social, economical and spiritual topics. I adore her analytic skills and usually get some advice how and where to focus and grow in the areas I want to excel.
Guoda revealed to me the beauty of Baricco, Wassmo in earlier years. And that summer day near Neris river in Vilnius she had a new interesting book in her hands. It was The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Guoda was reviewing it for the Lithuanian magazine.
Intrigued about the topic of the book – uncertainty, randomness, focus of what is not known yet (as importance of unread books in the shelfs) some time later I found this book in the Gatwick airport and bought it.
I think it is a good book, especially if you are interested in a cross-science viewpoints.
I would not completely agree, that it is “The hottest thinker in the world” (Sunday Times 2 June 2008), but I easily can see it reaching citing ratios in speaches and conferences as Blink, or The World is Flat.
Gouda’s review has much deeper view (in Lithuanian), and I would completely agree with her point that the book could be written in a smaller number of pages.
As well, I loved to observe how my brain, trained on teletraffic theory and statistics, chews on the ideas of the book. I am buying a copy for my professor Villy Baek, for sure!
Niam, niam. Taste it!
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Vilius – August 5, 2008
Today I was listening to great John Lucht Interview on Manager Tools (the place I love more and more!) and got hit by the phrase:
Planning is everything, plans are nothing
This short message looked very true to me and I decided to google it. What a shame, it is known and written about at so many places! It was repeated over and over, is cited as sayed by many authors.
Most important, that when I compare my mental state before I heard the phrase to afterwards, it feels like I got infected by the virus, the powerful idea.
At least I have recognized it 
Could make good case in point for “Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip and Dan Heath.
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Vilius – June 20, 2008
- reactive behaviour reflects existing reality (ignoring the future);
- proactive behaviour reflects the future (ignoring chaos);
- creative behaviour changes the future (utilizing chaos).
“Organisational Development: A Manual for Managers and Trainers” by Dr. Artashes Gazaryan 2006
For me it describes that I find being a reason and a way of proper management of all own activities conducted daily.
In other words, how to manage the focus, balance, and energy between living today and preparing for the future.
Today I am maintaining daily routines, fix issues, solve problems, and enjoy life. As well, I drive myself to the future I want. Finally, out of complexity and mess I see I try to create something new and amazing.
For me it enhances the “view angle set” by Philippe Starck’s “Why design?” at TED.
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Vilius – April 14, 2008
Focus on simplicity!
There is acknowledged beauty in simplicity, discover it everywhere.
Simplicity caries power of understanding, where complexity roots in non-comprehension.
Blog to check and book to remember: lawsofsimplicity.com
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Vilius – February 29, 2008
Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner is an amazing book, which I just finished listening last week and want to share the summary of my thoughts:
- This book helped me killing 4 hours in traffic jam of 120 km on 1st Jan 2008 driving back from Slovakia in Zakopane area. It was 1/4th of 16 h driving experience, and the book will stay a big part of this trip
- I loved the plot – well balanced with diversity, tension, unpredictability, cultural richness
- It was not only the engagement with characters of the book, but with the author as well – he read the book
- Personally I do not know any Afghan people. My father was in Afghanistan in his youth. I drink very black tea from the Pakistan/Afghanistan border mountain area, which was brought to me by my fellow Pakistani students in Denmark. From the same students I learned about life in the region, about social smoking, and how drugs help concentration when preparing for exams.
- Book talks about many epochs, touches both the times of my father and 2000s, when I met many Pakistani students in Scandinavia. It is shocking to realize how subjectively we take reality – the violence which is mentioned in the book was part of the environment of the people I worked with.
- How actually the kites are fighting? In childhood I tried couple times to run kites, but cannot recall why it was not so impressive
Tomorrow I have some hours of driving and probably will go for Bhagavad Gita, or some John Udell’s podcasts.