A man and his wife are in court getting a divorce. The problem is who should get custody of the child. The wife jumps up and says: “Your Honour, I brought the child into the world with pain and labour. She should be in my custody.” The judge turns to the husband and says, “What do you have to say in your defence?” The man sits for a while contemplating, then slowly rises. “Your Honour, if I place R5 in a vending machine and a Coke comes out, whose Coke is it – the machine’s or mine?”
Ramon Thomas
Psychology of Technology Blog
The 5 biggest mistakes professionals make when it comes to meeting women
This is part of a Q&A series from my CNBC Africa interview. So here is my list of the biggest mistakes professionals make. You know just last week I was walking toward Village Walk in Sandton and I spotted a group of guys who likely work at Rand Merchant Bank or Investec. They were all wearing black suits and probably going for lunch. Now the first thing I noticed here is that these guys all looked the same. There was nothing that set any of them apart from the other. In fact they all looked like could be working in a morgue. So when it comes to how you’re dressing for work it will make a huge difference is you can just wear one item like a tie or a shirt that can get the attention of women. There is a theory in the seduction world worth exploring here called peacocking.
Anyway here’s my top 5 mistakes. Post additional ones as comments on this post.
- Not approaching the women they really want to approach
- Instead of trying different approaches, they keep trying harder doing the same thing
- Nervousness and anxiety prevents them from acting normal
- Not knowing how to escalate physically
- Focussing to much on one woman and not improving their overall success with women
A civilized list when not to use email
Hot on the heals of my previous post about email jokes causing information pollution I found a new manifesto on the very topic of bad email etiquette published here. Some of this could certainly apply to SMS or text messages as well.
How to maximise your time as a busy Professional when dating
Professionals often don’t have a lot of time to socialise. In brief, simple terms, what practical examples of how they can make the most of the time they do you have when trying to secure phone numbers or a date.
You must including online dating in your arsenal simply because it gives you access to hundreds of thousands of single women. And once you’ve set-up your profile, the part that requires most of the work, it’s low maintenance and initiating contact is easy and convenient (Sundays is best to send first emails). Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook are also excellent free alternatives. The other important thing to do is to ensure that you always dress for success every single time you go out. So for example when you go grocery shopping this can be a very good way to meet new women. And instead of going to your local SPAR go the the Woolworths because you will find higher quality women shopping there – they also have excellent coffee shops, which is very popular among certain groups of women. When you are out for a drink with your buddies you must take some time out to approach women and this maximises your time. In fact you need to take every opportunity of leaving your house or your office to strike up conversations with women.
What are you favourite openers for starting conversations with women?
- Ask a women an opinion about something in the environment to make it more natural
- Comment on an item she is wearing that is unique or unusual
- Comment on something happening close by loud enough for her to hear
The lack of Email Netiquette as the Internet grows in South Africa
My mentor Arthur Goldstuck has just released his latest statics on Internet growth in South Africa. According to his annual study growth has slowed down to 3% per annum and by the end of 2007 we will have ONLY 3.85 million South Africans online. This is including the explosion of access since broadband became available a few years ago.
Anyway as more new people are gaining access to the Internet they are breaking most of the guidelines of good email netiquette. In the early days of the Web around 1994-1998 there were many people who policed the Internet and enforced good netiquette. Netiquette is simply a set of guidelines that was originally published in RFC 1855. The problem we are finding ourselves in is that no company – as far as I am aware – provides their staff with some basic training around online etiquette. The simply result here is that you will find half of your emails could be jokes with sometimes excessively large attachments sent to you by friends or acquaintances who have added you to a jokes list without asking your permission. This is one of the ways that we are increasingly creating more information pollution.
Here are a few reasons why companies should change their attitudes about basic online literacy training:
- reducing internal and external bandwidth costs
- lowering support costs from the IT department (internal or external)
- increasing productivity by employees
I look forward to your comments with the stories of your bad email netiquette experiences.
Joke of the Day: Mbeki, Zuma, Fraser-Moleketi and Dlamini-Zuma
Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi and Manto Tsabalala Msimang were flying together in the President’s jet. Thabo Mbeki suddenly said: “You know what. I can throw a R500 right now out of this window and make someone happy.”
Jacob Zuma said: “I can throw five R 100 notes out of the window and I will make 5 people unbelievably happy.”
Geraldine said: “I will give government employees 7.25% salary increase and make millions happy”.
Manto said : “I will can throw ten R 50 notes out of the window and make 10 people very, very happy.”
The one pilot looks at the other and says:
“Listen to those 4 showoffs at the back… I can throw all 4 of them out of the window right now and I will make the whole country very happy!”
Low-information diet and reducing workplace and technology stress
One the best resources I’ve encountered, thanks to the prolific Seth Godin, is ChangeThis.com, a website where experts publish short manifestos (ebooks) which are available at no cost to you. One of the recent ones really made an impact on how I’m using email.
The Low-Information Diet: How to Eliminate E-Mail Overload & Triple Productivity in 24 Hours by Timothy Ferriss. I want to emphasise that I am not recommending the Four-Hour Work Week book because I have read all the negative reviews on Amazon.com and agree with most of it. And what did it for me was how vociferously Donny Deutsch (appeared in The Apprentice) disagreed with him on a video interview posted on Four Hour Work Week blog.
What I am considering after reading this manifesto is developing a short presentation or seminar on how to reduce workplace stress and technology stress. If you have any stories or questions about this please take a moment to email me. I am excited about this because it really save companies a lot of money if they can improve workplace productivity and at the same time reduce stress. So I am looking forward to hearing your comments on technology and it’s role in workplace stress.
Father and Son Life Perspectives
One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”
“It was great, Dad.”
“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.
“Oh yeah,” said the son.
“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.
The son answered:
“I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”
The boy’s father was speechless.
Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”
Isn’t perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.
Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!
Pass this on to friends and acquaintances and help them refresh their perspective and appreciation.
Shift Happens – Did You Know 2.0
This video clip was first introduced to me through Vinny Lingham’s blog. I’ve since recommended it widely and also used it in a Social Media seminar I conducted at AAA School of Advertising in Cape Town back in May. It was a hit with the students. Anyway the back story to this presentation is now included in the new video version posted on Youtube. The presentation was created by Karl Fisch with assistance from Scott McLeod.
I really believe we have a major problem in South Africa because we are not doing enough to get ahead. What I mean is that the system is so convoluted and outdated, we will not be competitive with our peers. While if we listed to this kind of advice and learn from the best fastest growing countries in the world like India and China, we can accelerate our growth. Everything we need starts with learning and education.
The Triangle in Bermuda unravelled
You will enjoy this DVD if you enjoy other current science fiction series like The 4400 or Heroes. The producers include Bryan Singer, director of first two X-Men films and Superman Returns as well as Dean Devlin, producer of Stargate and Independence Day. The cast is exceptional with Eric Stoltz, Sam Neill, Lou Diamond Phillips, Catherine Bell, Bruce Davidson (twice in X-Men as Senator Robert Kelly), and Michael E. Rodgers. There is also two South African actors in the series with brief roles: Marius Weyers, still with a thick South African accent after all these years and Hakeem Kae-Kazim, originally from Nigeria but primarily based in South Africa. I’ve met Hakeem a few times and he has awesome energy about him.
The plot is simple – it seems. A very rich shipping magnate Eric Benirall (Sam Neill) recruits a group of misfits that include a journalist for a tabloid, a deep ocean resource engineer, a man with genuine psychic abilities and Meteorology professor. They band together in desperate times as they find weird coincidences or as Freud called them uncanny happenings. On the surface it seems straightforward, Benirall’s company controls about 1/5th of all ships on the sea at any given time through his cargo company and has lost 6 ships in a short space of time. Later on more deeper reasons emerge as it turns out Benirall lost a brother in the Bermuda Triangle. Each one of the main cast have personal circumstances which adds depth to their characters. The navy it turns out is building a huge machine to counter the effects of the infamous Philadelphia Experiment, in which a ship allegedly disappeared in a scientific experiment in 1943. It has been an integral part of many conspiracy theories over the decades.
In summary this is a great action packed, sci-fi thriller. It’s also reminiscent of the X-Files in many ways and pays homage to mixing hard core scientists, with sceptics, with soothsayers. This is a highly recommended DVD to all those who enjoy suspense, unusual events mixed with great science fiction and excellent performances by the cast. Just a final note – I was really chuffed this mini series was shoot mostly in Cape Town.
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