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Monday, November 5, 2012

Knowing yourself


Knowing yourself means not only that you find out what you are good at and what you like, it also means discovering what you are not good at and what you don't like. Both help you to see your goal in life.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012

A learning tool is a tool to create or deliver learning content/solutions for others, or a tool for your own personal or professional learning. (http://c4lpt.co.uk)
Here is the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 as voted for by 582 learning professionals worldwide. Below is the slideset available via Slideshare and beneath it the textual list.  Other pages are available as follows:

Friday, October 19, 2012

Startup part 1


There is a notion that “startup” is just a small business and “Entrepreneur” is just a “fancy” name for a small business owner. Small businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, street food business etc all have owners who start their own business. They work hard and hire people, mostly family members. Some are barely profitable as these small businesses are NOT designed to grow. Their goal is simply to survive and support the family. These people have skills and little capital borrowing from relatives. They are not rich and only survive in the local market. Every country has millions of them. Of course, they can be called “entrepreneur” as they seize opportunities and willing to take risks but their goal is only to feed their family, or create jobs for relatives.

Entrepreneur part 2


There is a new government report on business trends. It found that the current economic recession has been a stimulus for entrepreneurship. By examining the percentage of people who start their own companies, it found that in 2008, there was 3% went up to 6.5% in 2009, then 12% in 2010, and 18.5% in 2011. The interesting fact is a similar situation also happened in 1978. During this economic recession (1978-1982) Steve Jobs started Apple and Bill Gates started Microsoft which stimulated the explosion of the electronic, computer and software industry. The report concluded that economic difficulty tends to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit.

Entrepreneur part 1


Entrepreneurs can be defined as people who start a small company that create new products or new services and successfully grow that into an enterprise. Of course the term “Entrepreneur” is often associated with famous people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg etc. However, there are thousands of entrepreneurs that people do not even know their names. These people are successful but often lead quiet lives so people may not hear about them.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Inside Amazon Web Services


From storage to payment, the king of clouds is dangling an array of low-cost services. We take a close look at the tools for IT and developers.
Amazon's Web Services (AWS) are based on a simple concept: Amazon has built a globe-spanning hardware and software infrastructure that supports the company's Internet business, so why not modularize components of that infrastructure and rent them? It is akin to a large construction company in the business of building interstate highways hiring out its equipment and expertise for jobs such as putting in a side road, paving a supermarket parking lot, repairing a culvert, or just digging a backyard swimming pool.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The 21st century skills


The 21st century is known as the “Information Age” in contrast to the 20th century as “The Industrial Age”. It is important to know that the skills needed in today's global economy are different from the skills needed in the past. With globalization, the world is becoming an open market where countries and companies are competing for economic advantages. The application of Information Technology (IT) has forced many changes that never happened before. In this “Connected world”, no country is strong enough to withstand the impact of global economy forces. Without knowledge of the global economy, a country cannot defend itself to forces that it cannot control. The same thing also happens to company, without a good strategy it cannot defend itself to competitors that it does not even know.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Trend in Information technology


According to a U.S. government 2011 report: Information Technology fields (Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information System Management) have become the most popular fields of study at U.S. Universities. The enrollment is increasing more than 28% mostly due to the better opportunities in a tight job market.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Understanding What the Customer Buys


What does the customer consider value?
The final question needed in order to come to grips with business purpose and business mission is: “What is value to the customer?” It may be the most important question. Yet it is the one least often asked. One reason is that managers are quite sure that they know the answer. Value is what they, in their business, define as quality. But this is almost always the wrong definition. The customer never buys a product. By definition the customer buys the satisfaction of a want. He buys value.

Defining Business Purpose and Mission: The Customer


Who is the customer?
Who is the customer?” is the first and the crucial question in defining business purpose and business mission. It is not an easy, let alone an obvious question. How it is being answered determines, in large measure, how the business defines itself. The consumer—that is, the ultimate user of a product or a service—is always a customer.
Most businesses have at least two customers. Both have to buy if there is to be a sale. The manufacturers of branded consumer goods always have two customers at the very least: the housewife and the grocer. It does not do much good to have the housewife eager to buy if the grocer does not stock the brand. Conversely, it does not do much good to have the grocer display merchandise advantageously and give it shelf space if the housewife does not buy. To satisfy only one of these customers without satisfying the other means that there is no performance.
Action point: Take one product or service that you are responsible for and determine how many kinds of customers you have for it. Then figure out if you are satisfying all of your different kinds of customers, or if you are ignoring some category(ies) of customers.
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
Peter Drucker

Defining Business Purpose and Mission


What is our business?
Nothing may seem simpler or more obvious than to know what a company’s business is. A steel mill makes steel; a railroad runs trains to carry freight and passengers; an insurance company underwrites fire risks; a bank lends money. Actually, “What is our business?” is almost always a difficult question and the right answer is usually anything but obvious.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Nanotechnology


A student wrote to me: “What is Nanotechnology? I have read several articles about nanotechnology science but I cannot understand it or imagine what it is. Is it possible to explain it in simpler examples? Please help."

Balance Continuity and Change


Precisely because change is a constant, the foundations have to be extra strong.

The more an institution is organized to be a change leader, the more it will need to establish continuity internally and externally, the more it will need to balance rapid change and continuity.

The Educated Person


The educated person needs to bring knowledge to bear on the present,not to mention molding the future.
In his 1943 novel, published in English as Magister Ludi (1949), Hermann Hesse anticipated the sort of world the humanists want—and its failure. The book depicts a brotherhood of intellectuals, artists, and humanists who live a life of splendid isolation, dedicated to the Great Tradition, its wisdom and its beauty. But the hero, the most accomplished Master of the Brotherhood, decides in the end to return to the polluted, vulgar, turbulent, strife-torn, money grubbing reality—for his values are only fool’s gold unless they have relevance to the world.
Postcapitalist society needs the educated person even more than any earlier society did, and access to the great heritage of the past will have to be an essential element. But liberal education must enable the person to understand reality and master it.
Action point: Read a book on politics, history, or anything that interests you. What did you learn? How can you put that knowledge to work?
Post-Capitalist Society
Peter Drucker

depicts: describe
anticipate: guest
splendid: sáng lạng
vulgar: tầm thường
strife-torn: xung đột tàn phá
grubbing: Đào xới
fool: người hề
heritage: di sản

Knowledge and Technology


The new technology embraces and feeds off the entire array of human knowledges.
The search for knowledge, as well as the teaching thereof, has traditionally been dissociated from application. Both have been organized by subject, that is, according to what appeared to be the logic of knowledge itself. The faculties and departments of the university, its degrees, its specializations, indeed the entire organization of higher learning, have been subject-focused. They have been, to use the language of the experts on organization, based upon “product,” rather than on “market” or “end use.” Now we are increasingly organizing knowledge and the search for it around areas of application rather than around the subject areas of disciplines. Interdisciplinary work has grown everywhere.
This is a symptom of the shift in the meaning of knowledge from an end in itself to a resource, that is, a means to some result. Knowledge as the central energy of a modern society exists altogether in application and when it is put to work. Work, however, cannot be defined in terms of the disciplines. End results are interdisciplinary of necessity.
Action point: List results for which you are responsible. What specialists are you dependent on to get these results? How can you improve coordination among these specialists?
The Age of Discontinuity
Peter Drucker
dissociated: phân ly
embrace: bao trùm
Interdisciplinary: liên ngành


Knowledge and Skills


A skill is different from knowledge. Skill is the application of knowledge to produce desired results. A skilled worker is someone who can produce desirable results by having specific knowledge and practical experience. While school training provides the necessary knowledge but only through actual working on the job that student develop their skills. That is why in the U.S and some Western European countries, college students often work in the summer to gain those important skills. Today more companies require one to two years of experience even for entry-level job. If students work in the summer, it counts toward the needed experience. If they work for three summers, it counts as one year of experience. If they have a Capstone project, it counts as six months of experience.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Reinvent Yourself


Knowledge people must take responsibility for their own development and placement.

In today’s society and organizations, people work increasingly with knowledge, rather than with skill. Knowledge and skill differ in a fundamental characteristicskills change very, very slowly. Knowledge, however,changes itself. It makes itself obsolete, and very rapidly. A knowledge worker becomes obsolescent [nerver use] if he or she does not go back to school every three or four years.

This not only means that the equipment of learning, of knowledge, of skill, of experience that one acquires early is not sufficient for our present life time and working time. People change over such a long time span. They become different persons with different needs, different abilities, different perspectives, and, therefore, with a need to “reinvent themselves.” I quite intentionally use a stronger word than “revitalize.” If you talk of fifty years of working life—and this, I think, is going to be increasingly the norm—you have to reinvent yourself. You have to make something different out of yourself, rather than just find a new supply of energy.

Action point: Ask those ahead of you in age how they went about “repotting themselves.” What steps should you take now?
Drucker on Asia
Peter Drucker



35 Current Trends in ICT


By Robert Syputa, Partner & Strategic Analyst, Maravedis

In recent years the long anticipated convergence between mobile voice and IP data communications has unfurled at an accelerated pace, dramatically impacting individual industries as they are reshaped along many common fronts.  

This briefing outlines major trends and influences on of the converging Internet and mobile space. These are general observations, not evaluated for scale or timing of relevance for individual class of supplier, service provider, implementer or user.

Feedback: Key to Continuous Learning


To know one’s strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do—are the keys to continuous learning.

Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of significance (for instance, making a key decision), he is expected to write down what results he anticipates. Nine months later, he then feeds back from the actual results to these anticipations. This very soon shows him what he did well and what his strengths are. It also shows him what he has to learn and what habits he has to change. Finally it shows him what he is not gifted for and cannot do well. I have followed this method myself, now for fifty years. It brings out what one’s strengths are—and this is the most important thing an individual can know about himself or herself. It brings out where improvement is needed and what kind of improvement is needed. Finally, it brings out what an individual cannot do and therefore should not even try to do. To know one’s strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do—they are the keys to continuous learning.

Action point: List your strengths and the steps you are taking to improve them. Who knows you well enough to help identify your strengths?
Drucker on Asia
Peter Drucker


The Managerial Attitude


The demands for a “managerial attitude” on the part of even the lowliest worker is an innovation.

No part of the productive resources of industry operates at a lower efficiency than the human resources. The few enterprises that have been able to tap this unused reservoir of human ability and attitude have achieved spectacular increases in productivity and output. In the better use of human resources lies the major opportunity for increasing productivity in the great majority of enterprises—so that the management of people should be the first and foremost concern of operating managements, rather than the management of things and techniques, on which attention has
been focused so far.

Capitalizing on knowledge


The first focus of many knowledge initiatives in organizations is one of identifying and sharing existing knowledge more widely: "if only we knew what we know". Better management of this knowledge is used to improve business processes, increase productivity, reduce new product development times and achieve many other benefits. Beyond these initial benefits, organizations then turn to ways in which knowledge management can be used to improve their external performance.

Five Most educated countries


The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released its Global Education 2012 report and list the five most educated countries in the world:

Monday, October 1, 2012

The young and richest in China


Hurun, the research company announces the 2012 list of richest Chinese under forty with thirty-three young people selected. Only individuals who have more than $1 billion Yuan in assets and less than forty years old can be chosen. This is the second year that Hurun has published the list. Yang Huiyan, 31, won first place with a wealth of 36 billion Yuan ($5.7 billion US dollars). Fang Wei, 39, second only to Yang , was found to be the richest young entrepreneur starting from scratch with assets of 15 billion Yuan ($2.4 billion US dollars). Among the richest under 40, most came from business and information technology industries. Many started when they were still in college and some even made more than million when they were younger than 25. Most people think that rich Chinese got their wealth through inheritance but actually most of them are self-made billionaires," said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report.

Current trends in Japan


Not long ago, Japan dominated the world with its electronic industry. Today its electronic industry is struggling to survive. Not long ago, names like Sony, Panasonic or Sharp were the most valuable brands. Today they are trying to remain competitive with Apple, Google, or Samsung. What has happened? 

As technology changes, market changes, consumers’ needs changes but Japanese companies have not changed much. They continue to build the same televisions, phones, computers when their competitors are capturing the market with new and innovated products. In this fast changing world, Japanese companies are too slow to adapt new technology to develop new products. Both Sony and Panasonic missed the smart-phones and tablets when Apple, Google and Samsung captured the majority of the market. The problem is getting worst when Sony and Panasonic keep losing money and market shares. New managers were brought in but could not do much as their thinking was still remain the same. A business analyst concluded: “Japanese companies were busy focusing on their old electronic business but the market simply bypass them and move on with new devices where software is the main driver.”

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Information Age


What will happen to you today if you do not know how to read and write? The same thing may happen to you in the next ten years if you do not know how to use a computer or a smart phone. People who do not understand this or do not know the impact of information technology will be at a disadvantage just like people who do not know how to read and write today. 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Skilled Work, Without the Worker

DRACHTEN, the Netherlands — At the Philips Electronics factory on the coast of China, hundreds of workers use their hands and specialized tools to assemble electric shavers. That is the old way. 

At a sister factory here in the Dutch countryside, 128 robot arms do the same work with yoga-like flexibility. Video cameras guide them through feats(kỳ công) well beyond the capability of the most dexterous(khéo léo)human.

The need for IT workers

Microsoft suggests that the U.S government let companies, including itself, pay higher fees to bring more foreign workers to the U.S. and government can use the proceeds to educate more U.S engineers to solve the country’s technology workers shortage. The company says the plan could produce $500 million annually to help fund U.S. education in science, technology, education and math (STEM), while helping technology companies by letting them bring in more IT workers from overseas.

Friday, September 28, 2012

From Information Management to Knowledge Management: Are You Prepared?

Dr David J. Skyrme

The following is the full text of a paper that was delivered at OnLine '97 (9-11 December 1997). Reproduced with the permission of Learned Information Europe Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1865 388000. Fax: +44 (0)1865 736354. A follow-on paper Information Managers: Do We Need Them? was presented at Online Information 2004.

This paper reviews the role of the Internet in the current 'knowledge revolution'. Knowledge has emerged as a current 'hot topic' for many organisations. Many see knowledge management as the next source of competitive advantage.
The paper starts by exploring the momentum in the knowledge agenda and reviews the current state of theory and practice, based on an international study of best practice. It then considers the role of information systems, and especially how the evolution of the Internet and Intranets can contribute to effective knowledge management. These themes are together in frameworks that shape the role of the technological infrastructure in knowledge work. It is concluded that collaborative technologies and information management both have significant contributions to make, but that many organisations have yet to adopt them both systematically and strategically. Implications are developed for online service providers and information professionals in how they might achieve their full potential in moving forward the strategic knowledge agenda.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)


A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program is a software product designed to help businesses focuses on the relationships with its customers. CRM software tracks contact with customers, collect sales information, product support data and other issues. All data are analyzed, categorized, and organized into reports to management.

Getting work experience


Today many companies are looking for recent software graduates with some experiences to fill entry-level jobs. Most require at least two years of experience. A company owner explains: “We hired many graduates in the past, since they did not have the skills that we need, we had to train them. After a year or so, they all left for better positions or higher salaries in another companies. Since so many of them keep switching jobs, we do not want to hire recent graduates and train them anymore but prefer workers with at least one or two years of experience because they are trained by somebody else. It is strictly a business decision.” Other industry representative comments: “The frequent switching of job among software workers has left many companies bitter about newly graduates. A trained worker that leaves a company is very costly, especially if it happens within a year or so. It is the workers fault.”

Although the industry blames software workers but I think the main issue is the gap between what school teaches and what the industry needs. According to several reports, many recent graduates do not have the right skills and must be retrained because what they know is not what the industry needs. Unless this gap can be closed, this situation will get worst. Today software companies want their new hires to have both technical skills and soft-skills such as teamwork, problem solving, communication and critical thinking etc.

With this attitude from companies, what should college students do? The solution is to start career planning when you first enter college. You must select schools that have the most up to date curriculum to get the technical skills that the industry wants. You must continue to read more about industry trends to prepare yourself for the future. You must develop the skills that will help you to get into the career that you want. You may need to work in the summer to get some experiences even it may not pay much. In this working place, you will learn about what the company needs, what skills are important as well as develop your soft-skills. A summer job allows you to develop these valuable skills and this is your investment in your future. In this highly competitive world, only the well-prepared will succeed.
----------------------------------------
Prof. Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
source: http://www.segvn.org/forum/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,1937

Are You Involved in Every Decision at Your Company?


Does every problem still come across your desk? Are you spending too much time in the weeds and not enough thinking about the big picture? Are you feeling burned out? For many business owners I know, the answers to these questions are a resounding “yes.”
One of the best ways I know to create value in a business is for the owner to become operationally irrelevant. That doesn’t mean leaving the business. It means changing your relationship to your business. Instead of being involved in every decision, you build a team and find a way to trust your senior employees to take care of their individual areas of responsibility.

Management: The Central Social Function


Noneconomic institutions need a yardstick that does for them what profitability does for business.

Nonbusiness institutions flock in increasing numbers to business management to learn from it how to manage themselves. The hospital,the armed service, the Catholic diocese, the civil service—all want to go to school for business management.

The Function of Management Is to Produce Results


Above all management is responsible for producing results.
Management has to give direction to the institution it manages. It has to think through the institution’s mission, has to set its objectives, and has to organize resources for the results the institution has to contribute. Management is, indeed, J. B. Say’s “entrepreneur” and responsible for directing vision and resources toward greatest results and contributions.

The Spirit of an Organization


It’s the abilities, not the disabilities, that count.
Two sayings sum up the “spirit of an organization.” One is the inscription on Andrew Carnegie’s tombstone:
Here lies a man
Who knew how to enlist
In his service
Better men than himself
The other is the slogan of the drive to find jobs for the physically handicapped: “It’s the abilities, not the disabilities, that count.” A good example was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s confidential adviser in World War II, Harry Hopkins. A dying, almost a dead man for whom every step was torment, he could work only a few hours every other day or so. This forced him to cut out everything but truly vital matters. He did not lose effectiveness thereby; on the contrary, he became as Churchill called him once, “Lord Heart of the Matter” and accomplished more than anyone else in wartime Washington. Roosevelt broke every rule in the book to enable the dying Harry Hopkins to make his unique contribution.
Action point: Figure out what each of your employees’ or colleagues’ strengths are and develop these strengths to help people perform better.
The Practice of Management
The Effective Executive
Peter Drucker
inscription: ~write
tombstone: feathering
handicapped: disable
confidential adviser: secret adviser

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Business Intelligence


Business Intelligence (BI) can be defined as a strategy that uses information technology to improve business competitiveness. Business Intelligence is often taught in Information System Management program. It focuses on the policies, standards, technology, and processes required allowing a company to get the information needed to support its business strategies and to improve competitive advantage. 

Practice Comes First

Decision makers need to factor into their present decisions the “future that has already happened.”
Decision makers—in government, in the universities, in business, in the labor unions, in churches—need to factor into their present decisions the future that has already happened. For this they need to know what events have already occurred that do not fit into their present-day assumptions, and thereby create new realities.
Intellectuals and scholars tend to believe that ideas come first, which then lead to new political, social, economic, psychological realities. This does happen, but it is the exception. As a rule, theory does not precede practice. Its role is to structure and codify already proven practice. Its role is to convert the isolated and “atypical” from exception to “rule” and “system,” and therefore into something that can be learned and taught and, above all, into something that can be generally applied.
Action point: Are the premises that you base your decisions on obsolete? Do you need a new intellectual framework to win in the market, as it exists today?

The New Realities
Peter Drucker
codify: make rules
premise: factor

The New Corporation’s Persona


In the Next Society’s corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.
Increasingly, in the Next Society’s corporation, top management will, infact, be the company. This top management’s responsibilities will cover the entire organization’s direction, planning, strategy, values, and principles; its structure and relationships between its various members; its alliances, partnerships, and joint ventures; and its research, design, and innovation.

Knowledge Workers: Asset Not Cost

Management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the institution in its care.
Knowledge workers own the means of production. It is the knowledge between their ears. And it is a totally portable and enormous capital asset. Because knowledge workers own their means of production, they are mobile. Manual workers need the job much more than the job needs them. It may still not be true for all knowledge workers that the organization needs them more than they need the organization. But for most of them it is a symbiotic relationship in which the two need each other in
equal measure.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Autonomy in Knowledge Work

Knowledge work requires both autonomy and accountability.
Demanding of knowledge workers that they define their own task and its results is necessary because knowledge workers must be autonomous. As knowledge varies among different people, even in the same field, each knowledge worker carries his or her own unique set of knowledge. With this specialized, unique knowledge, each worker should know more about his or her specific area than anyone else in the organization. Indeed, knowledge workers must know more about their areas than anyone else; they are paid to be knowledgeable in their fields. What this means is that once each knowledge worker has defined his or her own task and once the work has been appropriately restructured, each worker should be expected to work out his or her own course and to take responsibility for it. Knowledge workers should be asked to think through their own work plans and then to submit them. What am I going to focus on? What results can be expected for which I should be held accountable? By what deadline? Knowledge work requires both autonomy and accountability.
Action point: Write a work plan that includes your focus, desired results, and deadline. Submit it to your boss.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
Knowledge Worker Productivity (Corpedia Online Program)
Peter Drucker
autonomy: flexible(free) to control
accountability: responsibility, mission, duty

Management Is Indispensable

Whoever makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before deserves better of mankind than any speculative philosopher or metaphysical system builder.
Management will remain a basic and dominant institution perhaps as long as Western civilization itself survives. For management is not only grounded in the nature of the modern industrial system and in the needs of modern business enterprise, to which an industrial system must entrust its productive resources, both human and material. Management also expresses the basic beliefs of modern Western society. It expresses the belief in the possibility of controlling man’s livelihood through the systematic organization of economic resources. It expresses the belief that economic change can be made into the most powerful engine for human betterment and social justice -- that, as Jonathan Swift first overstated it three hundred years ago, whoever makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before deserves better of mankind than any speculative philosopher or metaphysical system builder.
Management—which is the organ of society specifically charged with making resources productive, that is, with the responsibility for organized economic advance—therefore reflects the basic spirit of the modern age. It is, in fact, indispensable, and this explains why, once begotten, it grew so fast and with so little opposition.
Action point: Come up with a few examples of why management, its competence, its integrity, and its performance, is so decisive to the free world.
The Practice of Management
Peter Drucker
survive (v): outlive

Identifying the Future

The important thing is to identify the “future that has already happened.”
Futurists always measure their batting average by counting how many things they have predicted that have come true. They never count how many important things come true that they did not predict. Everything a forecaster predicts may come to pass. Yet, he may not have seen the most meaningful of the emergent realities or, worse still, may not have paid attention to them. There is no way to avoid this irrelevancy in forecasting, for the important and distinctive are always the result of changes in values, perception, and goals, that is, in things that one can divine but not forecast.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

On the practice of a weekly review

A weekly review is an excellent idea. Here are some of the reasons why we need do it:
  1. Track and celebrate accomplishments. Ever wondered where your days went? Tracking your accomplishments lets you get a handle on what you’ve done. Celebrating what you’ve finished encourages you to do more, too.
  2. Deliberately plan the next week. Instead of just reacting to the tasks and interruptions that come up during the week, sit down and plan a few things that you want to do.
  3. Follow up on priorities. If a priority task needs more work, having it on your list makes it easy to follow up (or see where you’re procrastinating!).
  4. Keep people up to date. If you make it easy for family, friends, and coworkers to keep up with what you’re doing, they’ll know more about interests, resources and opportunities that can help you.
  5. Make it easy to review the year. Having a record of your accomplishments and tasks makes those yearly reviews so much easier.
  6. Reflect on what worked and what can be better. Reviewing your week and planning the next one nudges you to think about how things can be better.
It doesn’t take a lot of time, and the benefits are tremendous. I can usually do my weekly review in 15-30 minutes.
Here’s what I’ve learned from doing so:
  • Bullet lists keep things short and simple. You don’t need to document everything – just enough to help you remember.
  • Categories help you keep things balanced. There are lots of different category systems you can use, and you can make up your own. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People recommends thinking in terms of your different roles.Getting Things Done has lots of good pointers for weekly reviews. Play around with the idea.
  • There are lots of ways to do a weekly review, so experiment to find what works for you. Some people like asking a set of questions instead. Others like using spreadsheets. Find out what works for you!
If you’re new to blogging, a weekly review helps you ease into the habit of publishing, and it can help you improve your productivity habits too. Give it a try!
source: http://sachachua.com/blog/2010/01/on-the-practice-of-a-weekly-review/

Integrity in Leadership


The spirit of an organization is created from the top.
The proof of the sincerity and seriousness of a management is uncompromising emphasis on integrity of character. This, above all, has to be symbolized in management’s “people” decisions. For it is character through which leadership is exercised; it is character that sets the example and is imitated. Character is not something one can fool people about. The people with whom a person works, and especially subordinates, know in a few weeks whether he or she has integrity or not. They may forgive a person for a great deal: incompetence, ignorance, insecurity, or bad manners. But they will not forgive a lack of integrity in that person. Nor will they forgive higher management for choosing him.
This is particularly true of the people at the head of an enterprise. For the spirit of an organization is created from the top. If an organization is great in spirit, it is because the spirit of its top people is great. If it decays, it does so because the top rots; as the proverb has it, “Trees die from the top.” No one should ever be appointed to a senior position unless top management is willing to have his or her character serve as the model for subordinates.
Action point: Evaluate the character of the CEO and top management when considering a job offer. Align yourself with people who have integrity.
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
Peter Drucker
source : The daily Drucker

Top 13 questions to ask yourself

The questions we ask determine the answers we get. And it is from these answers that we create the actions of our day-to-day lives. This simple progression of questions to answers to actions implies that if we want more effective and productive actions, we can start by asking ourselves better questions.
The questions below are meant to help you create the actions you desire, and while you can ask these questions at anytime, the second half of December is a good time to ask, reflect on, and answer these questions.
Will it take some time? Yes it will. But it will be time well-spent. Read the questions now to get them in your sub-conscious mind. Then, schedule a two hour appointment (or schedule 10 minutes each day and do one question a day) with yourself in a quiet place, with your Journal, computer or just a pad of paper and record your answers to these questions.

Software Project planning: The "Ten-Steps" process


Some software project managers (PM) do not know how to develop a project plan. They do not even plan but only use the schedules given to them by customers. They do not develop vision for the project or estimate the project efforts. Their logic is requirements always change, why bother to plan something that will change? They do not understand the purpose or the benefits of a project plan.

Career Goals


Career goals are objectives that you set for yourself on what you want to achieve in your career. It is also a way to evaluate your progress along your career paths toward your goals. Career goals can be short term or long term. Long-term goals are often more general since they may change over time; short-term should be specific because they can be planned accordingly. For example, a student may set a short term goal to be a software developer when graduate. A software developer may set a short term goal to be a software project manager in three years. The long term goals are usually five to ten years in the future. A software worker may set long term goals to be a software director, Chief Information Officer (CIO), or an owner of a software company and measure his achievement along his career paths to determine whether he is making progress or not.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Learning new things


Lifelong learning is much more than just keeps up with technology knowledge. You also learn from experiences and from making mistakes. Many students believe by learning the newest technology would be sufficient but as you grow older and advancing in your career, you will learn more things that may have nothing to do with technology. Basically, you are maturing and becoming wiser.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Reading habit



Today many college students are having difficulty in reading textbooks. Many read pages after pages but do not understand anything so they have to re-read again and again and it consumes a lot of time. The fact is college textbooks are written differently from high-school textbooks as they have more information with complex concepts. The main reason students do not read well because they are not paying attention and have not developed a good reading habit when they were young. 

Project management experience



Dear Professor,


When graduated I always thought that I could write code for the rest of my career. It was until my third year that I realized that I could do more than just writing code and the training in your courses at CMU opened new opportunity for me. When my company had an opening in software project manager, I applied and got it without any difficulty. I have been working as project manager for five years and this short letter is about the things I have learned as project manager. Since you often asked working graduates to share experience with current students, I hope that my letter may benefit some students who someday will manage software project. 

Make a lot money


A software developer wrote to me: “I have software skills and want to start a software company that make a lot of money. My dream is to make million dollars or more. Is it possible? Or am I just dreaming? Please advice. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Mobile Health


Today mobile phone is the most popular communication device in the world with over 4 billion users. Even at some remote areas in Africa, Asia and South America there are many mobile phone users. Mobile phone offers every country a new opportunity to improve its healthcare services. Mobile-health or mHealth is the utilization of mobile communication technologies to deliver healthcare services. For example, there are mobile applications that remind patients to take their medicine at the appropriate time; mobile applications that conduct examination, diagnosis and even treatment to patients who do not have access to a medical doctor. Telemedicine apps allow doctor to talk to patients and conduct examination remotely. Remote health monitoring apps can track and report patients’ conditions to medical doctors.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The mobile phone war


Few years ago, the biggest mobile devices companies were Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, Samsung, RIM, and Motorola. Today the biggest are Apple and Google. No one could have predicted the rise of these two software companies in the mobile area. This is how a technology strategy is applied to compete and win in this highly global competitive market.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Selecting fields of study


In the past, few college students have to plan for their careers because life is simple. If they go to college and get a degree, they can find a job, then go to work on that job for the rest of their life. Today thing is more complex with globalization, fast changing technologies, economic competition, and more people compete for fewer jobs. Therefore, college students must carefully plan their career, get guidances to select the right field of study, obtain the right skills to find a good job. They will change job several times in their life by continuously learning new skills as demand changes. 

Hot Skills 2012


According to several industry reports, the critical shortage of Information Technology (IT) skills continues with IT salary increases faster than any other skills. The highest demands are in Mobile application development, Cloud computing management, and Database administration. Last few years, web development was hot but with the number of mobile phone, especially smart phone increases, the need to have more mobile apps accelerates the industry demand toward mobile app development. (It is estimated that the world has over 4.5 billion phone users with a third of them are smart phones). These reports analyze growth patterns for technology skills and IT hiring trends in 15 countries, including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Japan, Finland, China, Norway, Italy, and S. Korea etc. and list the IT skills in greatest demand as: 

1) Mobile application development: - iPhone/iPad, Android, Window 8, HTML 5, JavaScript, and UI design.
2) Cloud Computing management: - Salesforce, Google Apps, Amazon Web services, Azure and Eloqua.
3) Database Administration: - My SQL, Oracle, Cognos, Hbase, and Informatica

Among those skills, iPhone/iPad and Android development skills are among those in greatest demand, as companies are paying the highest salaries to obtain those skills. Companies are also paying top salaries for Cognos and Informatica expertise. HTML 5 and JavaScript skills are next and little higher than people with MySQL skills. 

The reason why so many companies cannot hire workers with these skills is currently no formal training of these skills in any college so most workers are self taught or learn these skills on their own. According to a source from NASSCOM, only India has these skills in their training programs at some universities. That may explain why many companies are looking to India as the main source for their skilled workers today and in the future. One executive said: “On the average it takes about two years for U.S schools to develop new course for a new technology but India can do that in less than a year. Their trainings are flexible and always response to industry needs. That is why they are ready whenever we need skilled workers. That may explain why even in a slow economy, their IT outsourcing industry is still doing well.”


Prof John Vu    
Carnegie Mellon University
Original source: 

Tips for entrepreneurs


One of my role models is leaving IBM to explore the world of entrepreneurship. Jamie Alexander has a lot of development experience. He built a number of sites, including PassItAlong, an internal social learning system we use at IBM. He’d be the first to admit he needs help with the business side, though, and he’s looking forward to learning more about marketing and adoption. He’s applying to the Digital Media Zone incubator at Ryerson University, and will check out the local technology events.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Career advancing


When a person advances, he leaves his current position and moves to better position. For example, a first year college student advances to second year. Each year students advance to the next grade by acquiring certain knowledge and passing exams. The same thing also happens in the industry. Workers advance from entry level to more experience level, a novice advances to a professional etc.

Be prepared


Today we are living in an uncertain time where anything can happen and it may happen very quickly. Perhaps you are lucky to have jobs when other lost theirs but in this changing time, everybody needs a plan for finding job and stay employed. Who would have thought just in the past few months, several million people in the world have lost their jobs? Who would think that even large companies such as Toyota, AIG, IBM, and Microsoft would have to lay off people? Today with globalization, anything can happen so it is important that you must be careful in planning your careers. Students must consider seriously about their knowledge and skills as they are making education choices, university selections, training decisions, and job decisions, etc.

Global management


With globalization, companies are opening offices all other the world to take advantage of skilled workers and lower costs. However, opening offices in foreign countries is easy, managing it effectively and efficiently are much more difficult. This is a major challenge that all global companies are facing because managing people from different cultures, speaking different languages, having different education skill levels is something few people know how. As companies move from national to global with offices and manufacturing facilities around the world, “manage global people” is becoming the critical skills in very high demand.

Global leaders


Globalization means more business opportunities and more competition than ever before. New markets are available to every company but new competitors are emerging from every corners of the world. The most challenging task today is developing leadership to manage this vast and complex global business because the traditional management training does not work anymore. Companies that invest in developing global leadership will find more opportunities and better execution, while companies that do not face more risks and potential failure. To start doing business globally, companies need strong “Brand name” because when people have more choices, they will buy the “Brand name” rather than “Unknown brand”. By having a strong brand name, company can hire top people because highly skilled people want to work for well-respected companies. Companies that invest in developing strong global brands enjoy better chances of hiring top candidates with global experience. For example, companies like Toyota, Honda, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Nokia or Samsung will not have much problem in developing a global leadership management. With globalization, the world is the market; companies with strong leaders can change the competitive equation toward their direction because highly skilled global leaders not only know the customs and culture of the region in which companies operate, but they also understand the issues of doing business in those areas.

Learning by asking questions


University teachers often ask themselves, "Is my teaching effective?", "What could I do better?", “How can I improve my teaching?” The teaching method that most teachers are taught is based on the tradition that “teachers teach and students learn”. It is a one-way transmitting of knowledge. It is concentrating on the teaching, but not on the learning.

However, learning can happen without teachers. Some students can learn by themselves. We all learn many things by observation, by making mistakes and by actually doing something. These types of learning often stay with us and we call them experience. We may forget what we are taught in school but we never forget our experience. The question is instead of focusing on the teaching, should we place our priority on the student’s learning? The best ways to improve teaching is to focusing on how students are learning and this is the essence of active learning.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Learning "Soft-skills"


A student asked me: “Today many jobs require soft-skills but where do I learn those skills? Do I have to go to special school to learn them?"

Answer: You do not need to go to special school. Most “Soft skills” are often taught in college but you may not pay attention. Of course, there is no class called “Soft- skills” but many classes that you take can help you to develop these skills. For example, some college classes require students to give presentations or participate in group discussions. As presenter you will have to prepare for your talk in front of the class, you have to learn about the topic that you will present so you can talk about it confidentially. You will have to make sure that your presentation match the class level or interest. If it is too complicated, nobody will understand you. If it is too simple, they maybe bore and not pay attention. Basically you have to prepare and practice it several times to make sure that you feel comfortable on giving it. By doing that you are developing your soft-skill in “presentation”.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Chương 1: Hệ thống mới
Câu hỏi 1: Vấn đề là gì? Tác giả định nói đến vấn đề gì?
Tác giả muốn trình bày một hệ thống mới là toàn cầu hóa nhằm thay thế chiến tranh lạnh như một hệ thống định hình thế giới.
Bằng cách so sánh giữa những gì đã xảy ra trong thời kì chiến tranh lạnh với những biểu hiện của thế giới ngày nay, tác giả muốn cố trình bày,làm người đọc mường tượng,hình dung ra một thế giới mới là như thế nào, quy luật hoạt động vận hành của nó ra sao. Nó khác gì với hệ thống cũ.
Cụ thể: Tác giả nêu lên 7 đặc điểm của chiến tranh lạnh
01. Cấu trúc quyền lực riêng
02. Qui luật riêng
03. Hệ tư tưởng riêng
04. Cái nhìn toàn cầu riêng
05. Công nghệ định hình riêng
06. Thước đo riêng
07. Mối lo riêng

Friday, September 7, 2012

Cloud Computing Pattern


Diagram:
Depiction of generic security pattern that indicates the relationship and application of the main NIST control families.OSA is licensed according to Creative Commons Share-alike.Please see:http://www.opensecurityarchitecture.org/cms/community/license-terms.

On-line stores


Information technology (IT) can bring many advantages to businesses. With the Internet people can do business anywhere and anytime. Unlike the physical structure required to do business in the past, with IT business can be done on line. For example, people can do banking and not depend on the location of the bank. They can open an account online to any bank, deposit, and withdraw money from ATM machine anywhere in the world. With on-line stores, people can buy almost anything without have to leave their home. With on-line schools, students can access lectures via their laptops or mobile phones etc.

Mobile apps industry in India


Today, mobile phone is the hottest product in consumer electronic markets. Companies like Apple, Sony, Nokia, Samsung, HTC, and LG are launching new phones every few months and making a lot of money on of this opportunity. About half of the mobile phones in the market today are smart phones and it is predicted that within five years, all mobile phones will be smart phones. As smart phone usage is increasing, smart phone applications are also increasing and demand of smart phone apps developers is also increasing worldwide.

The issues with Outsourcing


In the past twenty years, many manufacturers that wanted to reduce costs would outsource to low-cost countries such as China, Malaysia, or Thailand. Today more companies are realizing that outsource works is not what they think they are getting and doing business overseas is more trouble than it is worth.

A company owner explained: “Many countries are not ready to do business globally. Outsource is a long term business but they only look at it as short term. They promise a lot but never keep their word, most products are low quality, many materials get lost or stolen, the abuse of low labor workers also create bad image for our company, and many government officials demanded a bribe. That is not what we expected.”

The robotic trend


If you visit electronics factories in China today, you will see thousands of workers use their hands and small tools to assemble electronic devices such as TV, DVD players, MP3 Players, and mobile phones etc. Electronic factories are thriving with several million labor workers. 

If you visit new and modernized electronic factories in Europe or the U.S. today, you will see hundreds of robots do the same work but much faster, and with better quality. These robots are equipped with video cameras, laser, sensors to guide them in their works and they work 24hours a day, and 365 days a year without any complain. This is not a futuristic scenario as it already happened. 

The information economy


A student asked me: “It is easy to talk about information age or the transition from the manufacturing economy to the information economy in class but do we have any evidence that it is actually happens? All the economic textbooks are still mentioning that natural resources and capital are the main drivers of a country’s economy.”

I explained: “Today many things change quickly; economic textbooks have not catch up yet. As student, you must read more on recent business articles and follow the global economic news to understand what is happening and from these facts you may draw your own conclusion.” 

Unemployment in Europe


Yesterday there was a documentary on TV about the young and unemployed in Europe. The documentary started with a group of young people sitting in a coffee shop, a typical gathering place for the unemployed youth. According to the TV reporter, they have been doing nothing for years except sat in coffee shop and felt angry. Many of them were college graduates but could not find jobs. One of them talked to the reporter: “My name is Giovanni, I have a degree in literature and wanted to work for a publishing company or government but with the current recession, there is no job.” Another young man added: “We are losing hope; we have been looking for jobs for two years but found nothing. Even people with experience also could not find job so we do not know what to do. There is no future for us.”

Cloud computing


Some of you have asked me about Cloud Computing and where could you learn more about it? Cloud computing is often taught in the Information System Management (ISM) program as it is focusing on the management of Information Technology (IT) infrastructures (hardware, software, network etc). I have also written several articles on Cloud computing previously in this blog.

Basically Cloud Computing is a computing model, not a technology. In this model, all the infrastructures such as servers, networks, applications and other elements related to IT data centers are provided to users via the Internet by an external cloud service company. Instead of having its own IT organization, a company can buy IT services and connect to the "cloud" for infrastructure services (Network, servers etc), platform services (operating system), or software services (Software as a Service application). Cloud computing makes an entire IT infrastructure look like a “Virtual cloud” to users and let them pay exactly the amount of storage, computing power, security and other functions that they need. 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Book Reviews: How to Write Book Reviews


A book review is both a description and an evaluation of a book. It should focus on the book's purpose, contents, and authority.

Scan the Book's Preliminaries

Before beginning to read, consider the following:
  1. Title - What does it suggest?
  2. Preface - Provides important information on the author's purpose in writing the book and will help you to determine the success of the work.
  3. Table of Contents - Tells you how the book is organized and will aid in determining the author's main ideas and how they are developed - chronologically, topically, etc.

Read the Text


Book Reviews


How to write a book review

There are two approaches to book reviewing: 
  • Descriptive reviews give the essential information about a book. This is done with description and exposition, by stating the perceived aims and purposes of the author, and by quoting striking passages from the text. 
  • Critical reviews describe and evaluate the book, in terms of accepted literary and historical standards, and supports this evaluation with evidence from the text. The following pointers are meant to be suggestions for writing a critical review.

How to Write a Book Review


A book review is a description, critical analysis, and an evaluation on the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, not a retelling. It should focus on the book's purpose, content, and authority. A critical book review is not a book report or a summary. It is a reaction paper in which strengths and weaknesses of the material are analyzed. It should include a statement of what the author has tried to do, evaluates how well (in the opinion of the reviewer) the author has succeeded, and presents evidence to support this evaluation.

Toàn cầu hoá: Thực tiễn tiến hoá của nhân loại

GIỚI THIỆU

Toàn cầu hóa (globalization) là một thuật ngữ thường xuyên được nói đến trong kinh tế chính trị và trong cuộc sống hàng ngày. Ở Việt Nam, thuật ngữ này chỉ được đề cập sau thời kỳ thực hiện chính sách Đổi mới năm 1986. Đại hội Đảng Toàn quốc lần thứ 6 năm 1986 đã cho rằng sự đóng cửa hay khép kín nền kinh tế nội địa là nguy cơ gây tụt hậu phát triển kinh tế. Thay vì vậy, Việt Nam phải mở cửa ra thị trường thế giới bên cạnh việc giữ vững độc lập và an ninh lãnh thổ theo định hướng xã hội chủ nghĩa. Trong cuộc họp Thượng đỉnh của khối ASEAN lần thứ 6 tại Hà Nội ngày 15 tháng 12 năm 1998, cựu Thủ tướng Phan Văn Khải nhận định rằng các nước đang phát triển phải đối mặt với những thách thức và cơ hội khi gia nhập nền kinh tế toàn cầu. Việt Nam hay ASEAN, tất nhiên, không phải là những cá nhân duy nhất tham gia vào tiến trình này.

Tóm lược quyển Thế Giới Phẳng[1] (Thomas L. Friedman, NXB Trẻ, 2006)

Thomas L. Friedman, biên tập viên chuyên mục ngoại giao và kinh tế của tạp chí New York Times, viết về đề tài toàn cầu hóa rất thành công, đã gây ra rất nhiều tranh cãi và tạo ra nhiều hướng đi khác nhau trong nghiên cứu học thuật về tác động của toàn cầu hóa. Sau thành công của tác phẩm “Chiếc Lexus và cây Ô-liu” nói về toàn cầu hóa xảy ra ở cấp độ quốc gia và sự ảnh hưởng của các tập đoàn kinh tế và công ty đa quốc gia; trong tác phẩm “Thế giới phẳng” (The World is Flat, 2005) gồm 15 chương được chia ra sáu chủ điểm, Friedman đã tóm lược lịch sử phát triển thế giới dưới tác động của toàn cầu hóa theo ba kỷ nguyên phát triển chủ yếu[2]. Kỷ nguyên thứ nhất (hay toàn cầu hóa 1.0) xảy ra từ năm 1492 đến 1800 khi Columbus tình cờ khám phá ra châu Mỹ, kích thích sự phát triển thương mại giữa Thế giới Cũ và Thế giới Mới kèm theo sự mở rộng của chế độ thực dân và sự tận dụng sức mạnh cơ bắp của con người là động lực chủ yếu. Toàn cầu hóa trong giai đoạn này xảy ra ở cấp độ quốc gia trong quá trình cạnh tranh và sự cố gắng vươn mình ra khỏi phạm vi biên giới lãnh thổ (trang 25). Giai đoạn 2.0 bắt đầu từ 1800 đến khoảng năm 2000 với sự gián đoạn của cuộc Đại Khủng hoảng ở Mỹ vào thập niên 20 của thế kỷ 20 và hai cuộc Chiến tranh Thế giới. Tác nhân chủ yếu của toàn cầu hóa thời gian này là do sự phát triển vượt bậc của thông tin, vận tải, và sự thống trị kinh tế và ảnh hưởng chính trị của các công ty đa quốc gia lên vai trò chính phủ. Vấn đề cốt lõi của toàn cầu hóa của thế kỷ 20 là sự vươn mình của các tập đoàn kinh tế đã phá vỡ các rào cản cho sự hội nhập kinh tế quốc tế (tr. 26).

Writing Template


I. Thesis sentence templates
The introduction for any piece of writing is very important. This is where you establish a relationship with the reader. A thesis sentence is a sentence in the introduction that tells the reader what the topic or argument of the essay is.
1. Comparison/Contrast thesis sentences
These templates can be used for essays where you are instructed to COMPARE or CONTRAST
1.1 Template 01
The differences[similarities] between ______ and _______ are________ , and they______ 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

CIO - Sharing experience


Dear professor, I always remember that you asked graduates to share their working experience with current students so here is my story:

“The dream of many Information Technology (IT) graduates is to work for software companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM or Oracle etc. When graduated, I got job offers from Microsoft, Google and a manufacturing company in New Jersey. I chose the manufacturing because it was located not far from Pennsylvania, where my parents live. To work nearby home instead of moving far away to California was a difficult decision for me. Most professors advised me that working for Software Company would be better for my career with better future and higher salary. You were the only professor who told me that nothing is better than staying close to my family to visit my parents often.”

The career path


Many students go to college to learn higher level of knowledge and skills that will hopefully lead to a better career and better life. However, after graduated many could NOT find good jobs or even any kind of jobs. Many are continue to live with their parents with college degrees that are not valuable in this highly competitive market. Some look at their college education as failure and wasting money of their parents. Some even wonder if their life would have been better had they not gone to college.

IT as a Service (ITaaS)


What is it all about?
For the last 20 years, Information Technology (IT) has gone through a huge evolution. From enormous machines, which were as big as a small house they are now the size of a Blackberry “toy”. Their power has increased significantly. But the number of problems has grown as well. To overcome this , the need to service both the equipment and the software has to be re-evaluated. A new delivery model is required.   “IT as a Service” (ITaaS) keeps all the advantages of a leading edge computer system and at the same time it avoids all the major problems:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

10 Global Trends in ICT and Education


The Top 10 Global Trends in ICT and Education are:
  1. Mobile Learning. New advances in hardware and software are making mobile “smart phones” indispensible tools. Just as cell phones have leapfrogged fixed line technology in the telecommunications industry, it is likely that mobile devices with internet access and computing capabilities will soon overtake personal computers as the information appliance of choice in the classroom.

  1. Cloud computing. Applications are increasingly moving off of the stand alone desk top computer and increasingly onto server farms accessible through the Internet. The implications of this trend for education systems are huge; they will make cheaper information appliances available which do not require the processing power or size of the PC. The challenge will be providing the ubiquitous connectivity to access information sitting in the “cloud”.

TSSR 01- Introduction: A Role for History

How to Win Friends and Influence People

The World is Flat

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

by Thomas S. Kuhn
Outline and Study Guide
prepared by Professor Frank Pajares
Emory University

Chapter I - Introduction: A Role for History.

Kuhn begins by formulating some assumptions that lay the foundation for subsequent discussion and by briefly outlining the key contentions of the book.
  1. scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs (p. 4).
    1. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice" (5).
    2. The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs exert a "deep hold" on the student's mind.
  2. Normal science "is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like" (5)—scientists take great pains to defend that assumption.
  3. To this end, "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments" (5).
  4. Research is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education" (5).
  5. shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions takes place when an anomaly "subverts the existing tradition of scientific practice" (6). These shifts are what Kuhn describes as scientific revolutions—"the tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" (6).
    1. New assumptions (paradigms/theories) require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the reevaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community.
    2. When a shift takes place, "a scientist's world is qualitatively transformed [and] quantitatively enriched by fundamental novelties of either fact or theory" (7).