Mingle Bells: The 5 Do's of Picking up at a Party

Want to be the party guest who lights up the room? See these party tips from singles..
Be prepared for the party season

I have a friend who claims to hibernate during the winter because all the couples she sees snuggling up and keeping each other warm make her want to crawl back into bed.

The good news is that the holiday season is one of the best times to meet someone. Chances are you'll be invited to more parties over the next few weeks than the rest of the year, and singles report that parties are one of the greatest places to meet potential dates. The mood is fun and festive and breaking the ice is easier when you know some people in common in the room.
When you're heading out to the parties, remember some of the 'do's' of picking up:

1. DO be impressed by the object of your affection rather than trying to impress him or her with all your stats. People notice when you notice them. No need to ask 20 questions, but do ask a few open-ended and specific questions (rather than 'yes'/'no' questions), make eye contact and listen. Curiosity is a very attractive quality and a simple way to engage your audience.

2. DO find common ground. What brought you to the party? Chances are you know some people in common in the room. This will help you build connection and trust. When asking the object of your interest questions, figure out some activities, hobbies, or experiences you've shared.

3. DO hang out by the food and drink table when you don't know who to talk to. Ever notice how people congregate in the kitchen at many house parties? Many people approach this area on their own to refill their cups and grab a bite, and it will be easier to start a conversation when they've stepped away from the other guests. Offer to get a drink for the object of your affection and if he or she is standing with a friend, extend the invitation.

4. DO see every person you meet as a potential connection.
Stay open. Sometimes the people you know the least will help you the most. If you chat with someone interesting who is not single, he or she may know someone to introduce you to. Also, do not assume that the shy person in the corner at a party is boring. Take the opportunity to learn about people in the room before you decide if you are interested or not.

5. DO initiate conversation. The general rule of networking is to approach someone who is standing on his or her own or join a conversation with three or more people. In general, it's not a great idea to interrupt two people talking unless you know one. When approaching someone new, always remember to smile.

So fill up your social calendar this holiday season and let the pick ups begin! If you play your cards right, you'll be like my friend and will want to hibernate and crawl into bed this winter...but in this case, it won't be because you're lonely.

SO LET THE PARTY BEGIN :)

Communications at Work

Today, most of your clients, colleagues and stakeholders are just a phone call or email away -- technology has made communication that simple. However, while tools like telephones and computers score high on convenience and speed, they lack the warmth and emotion that face-to-face communication provides.

Appreciating colleagues

In the words of Helen Keller, 'We are all walking with a signboard on our forehead which reads -- 'Appreciate me'.' It seems we have replaced the pat on the back with 'Thank you' and 'Good job' emails. But there is nothing that motivates someone more than seeing their boss walk up to them and appreciate them in front of everyone.

Go to your colleague's cubicle and congratulate them on the great report they sent or the presentation they made recently. I remember one of my ex-bosses who used to call us team members to his cabin just to say 'thanks' and pat our backs. The team immediately took a liking to him as most people expect a warning or feedback when the boss invites them to their cabin.

"It's difficult to build rapport over an email; I would feel much better if my boss appreciates me in person," says Ashok Krishnan, a CA with Nestle.

Criticising or providing feedback

When you provide feedback over an email or a phone call, the receiver may have a completely different perception about its relevance. This effect is amplified when you are not communicating face-to-face. The reader or listener may think you are cold and indifferent and that's why you avoided meeting them in person to discuss the issue. A face-to-face meeting gives you the opportunity to put your point across, while being sensitive and diplomatic at the same time.

"I have noticed that colleagues often use emails to avoid confronting the real issue. If someone fails to meet their target, I would prefer they tell me in person than offer an explanation over email," says Vidhanshu Bansal, a director with Pixel Webtech.

Assigning new responsibility
There is a great risk of the message getting diluted when a responsibility gets delegated through email or a phone call. Don't be surprised if your team does not show a sense of ownership or complete tasks on time if you are not communicating face-to-face. Nonverbal communication, such as tone of voice, facial gestures and eye contact help individuals understand the importance of a task and the need to complete it on time.

"We rely on conference calls, video conferencing and online meetings but, from my experience, there's nothing more impactful than meeting the team in person," says Delhi-based Ashu Gosh, a manager with Aviar IT Consulting.

Damage control with clients

If you haven't provided the product or service the client expected, you are putting your relationship with the client at stake. An apology mail would not suffice in a sensitive issue like this. Go to the client's office, if possible, without them having to call you for an explanation, and reassure them that the confidence they demonstrated when they gave you business was not misplaced. Your client would be pleasantly surprised that you took the time to come and meet them, especially when things went wrong.

"I used to interact on almost a daily basis with a client over emails without ever figuring out whether the person was male or female. When a report I was supposed to send got delayed, I made a rude comment about a female colleague which offended the client who happened to be a lady herself," says Deepak M.L, a manager with Convergys.

Resolving conflicts

Workplace conflicts are common in most organisations. The lack of interpersonal communication only worsens the situation. It's important to remember that 55 per cent of meaning in an interaction comes from facial and body language and 38 per cent comes from vocal inflection. Only seven per cent of an interaction's meaning is derived from the words themselves. So, trying to resolve a conflict over email or a phone call is often a bad idea.

"A colleague complained about another colleague and copied the senior management on the mail. I was surprised to see that mail translating into a flood of mails providing and seeking explanation. The person who sent the original mail was just one floor above the person who was at the receiving end. I had to sit down with both of them in person to resolve the conflict," says Kailasam R, a manager with Lufthansa Airlines.

Your communication style says a lot about you as a professional. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'You are always under examination by people around you, awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.' So leave the comfort of your cubicle and build trustworthy relationships by communicating face to face.

Expectations and HR

Business leaders have different expectations of HR and usually when HR professionals go ahead doing their job they conveniently forget to have any sort of "expectation alignment" discussion with their clients.

If you are a HR professional have you had an explicit discussion about what your client expects of you? Incidentally, have you thought about who exactly is your client? Is it the CEO? The business unit leaders? The middle managers (cranky or otherwise ;-) ? Or all employees?

What happens when you decide you have more than one client? Do you make your priority list explicit?

And what are your expectations of yourself as a HR professional? Where and at what level would you like to contribute to your organization and to your profession? How does that sync or clash with your business's expectations from you?

For some people having the big expectations explicit is important, but for others it can even be distracting when a context does not exist for it in the immediate time frame. For a person like me, the large expectations are important to know. However, I know of people who say "Damn, don't give me the philosophy, just tell me what you want from me this week and next week"

These are different modes of engagement between two parties, specially when one is providing professional services to the other. Someone like Peter Block, calls it the "engagement dance" in the "contracting" phase.

What professionals (whether "internal" or "external") often forget is that when the contracting is for a specific activity, you have to keep going back to the client and re-engaging again in subsequent contracting phases. However, when you have "contracted" on overall expectations, the smaller activities do not need constant renegotiations.

So my advice to HR professionals and business leaders is to make as much of the expectations explicit as possible. Some expectations might be embarrassing to share ("I want you to give me great service, so that I can showcase it and get a promotion") but putting as much as possible on the table makes the relationship easier.

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb CGI Re-enactment

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb CGI Re-enactment

From the awesome BBC doco "Hiroshima". See CGI effects bring this disaster to horrifying life.

This video makes me think was it really worth it to drop a bomb, so many change in the life of the people after it, life wud never been the same..
All i feel is love all,,v need peace... Live and Let live

Coffee Art

Coffee and a Kiss
This Pic is Wow!! How on earth did they manage to capture it:?

Sony’s Flexible OLED

Sony Oled

Sony presented their new cool oled monitor which is only 0.3mm thick and is formable. You can see how the man presenting it is bending it and how the movie is still visible and still played.

So cool..

When You Fall in Love (Debunking the Myths That Are Driving You Crazy)

(Debunking the Myths That Are Driving You Crazy) By: Bo Sanchez

This article isn't for teenagers only.

Falling in love happens to the young and the not-so-young. (Did you see 42-year-old Tom Cruise jump up and down Oprah's couch because of Katie?)
It happens to everyone. Fat, thin, tall, short, intelligent, uneducated, holy, not so holy, dark, white, yellow, green… it doesn't really matter.

All of us fall in love.
And we get stuck in myths that drive us absolutely crazy.

My goal is to debunk these myths and convince you not to believe in them.

Let's begin …

MYTH 1: LOVE WILL CONQUER ALL

Let me qualify.

This is such a tricky myth. Because love ----- as defined by the Bible ------ will conquer all. But love ------ as defined by glazed-eyed lovers ----- will not.

If you believe in this myth, you might do the following:

You overlook major obstacles in your relationship.

Everyone you know is wondering why you chose that creature from outer space as your boyfriend. Your bestfriends are telling you to get rid of him. Your family is telling you to throw him out of a running vehicle. Aling Rosa of the sari-sari store across the street is telling you to lace his drink with poison.

But you won't --------- because you're in love. That's why there are songs entitled, "you and me against the world".

Your best buds comment, 'but he's been jobless for the past three years!" And you say, "He's free-spirited. He feels boxed in when he's in the office. '(in other words, he's undisciplined, lazy bum.)

Your officemates say, 'He flirts with other women constantly!' and you say, 'No, he's just friendly.' (in other words, he's a pervert)

Your cousins say, 'He's taking drugs, He's got needle marks all over his arm. And you say, 'No, he's into cross stitching.'

You overstay in toxic relationships, believing that your love will change him

The wedding doesn't transform anyone…Even if three Popes officiate the wedding. The person you'll march with into the church will be the same person you'll march with out of the church. He doesn't change one bit.

In fact, the marriage makes the hidden more obvious.

If he was selfish before he got married, he will be even more selfish after the wedding. If he was hypercritical before he got married, he'll even be more vile and prolific with his criticisms after wedding. Here's the truth: You need more than feelings of love to make a relationship work. You need mature character, total commitment and a minimum level of compatibility.

Especially compatibility in the area of values and mission in life. I hear people say, 'We're compatible. Our names begin with the same letter J. My name is Julie and his name is Julio. We're both born in July."

Wow. That's so deep, I want to cry.

MYTH 2 : WHEN IT"S TRUE LOVE YOU WILL KNOW THE MOMENT YOU MEET THE OTHER PERSON

I'm sure you've had this experience before.

You are in a crowded room. You're surrounded by boring, noisy chatter when, suddenly, this gorgeous guy enters the door. Your eyes meet. Instantly, time stands still. The universe grinds to a halt. Except for this attractive man in front of you, everything in your vision becomes a giant blur. The hubbub of the crowd becomes a soft muffle and, from out of nowhere, you here gentle violin music from the background.

One week later, he's your boyfriend.

A few weeks later, you discover that your boyfriend's a pathological liar, buried in credit card debt, borrows money from all his girlfriends (you're his eight in six months).

Your mind says, 'Dump him'.

Your heart says, 'But it was love at first sight!'

Here are the consequences …

You become so focused on the magical first moment, you become blind to the dark side of the relationship.

Six out of seven days, you're fighting with your boyfriend. But you can't give him up because you met each other in such a magical moment. Your car keys fell and he picked it up, and then your eyes met, you smelled his deodorant, and you dropped your keys again ……How can you not be meant for each other?

You become a love-at-first-sight junkie that you could miss out on the 'real thing'.

One intelligent woman told me, 'Bo, there's this guy who's courting me. He's okay. He's kind, he's responsible, he has a good job…….'

"I could hear a 'but' coming ," I said.

"But there are no sparks!" she bit her lip.

"No violin music playing in the background huh?"

"None. When I see him, the background music I hear is lululalu-lalulalulalei…"

"Listen. You don't need a magical first moment to meet your potential husband. The important things are mature character, financial responsibility, ability for commitment, compatible mission and values…"

I actually met this girl again on her wedding, and before she marched down the aisle, she whispered to me, "Do you hear the violin music, Bo? It's loud and clear."

It doesn't have to be love at first sight. In fact, marriages with the least adjustments are those between friends who've known each other for years before they realize that they're good marriage material.

What is love at first sight?
Many times, it's lust at first sight. Or infatuation at first sight.

Don't give it too much weight.

Here's the truth: it takes a moment to experience infatuation but true love takes a lifetime.

MYTH 3 : IF IT IS TRUE LOVE YOU WILL FEEL THIS WAY FOR EACH OTHER FOREVER

No, you won't. Here are the consequences for believing this myth :
You panic when the feelings wane, and wonder whether the marriage is over and whether you really loved one another in the first place.

Imagine the night of your honeymoon. Your new bride is sleeping. The cotton curtains are gently swaying in the cool breeze. You gaze at her lovely face. You study her soft cheeks. Her long eyelashes. Her beautiful nose, her parted red lips.

And all of a sudden, she snores.
"Ngggggggooork"

How do you react? Because it's your honeymoon, you say, 'How cute.'

Six months down the road, the same scene transpires. Your wife is sleeping. And the same cotton curtains are gently swaying in the cool breeze. And you hear her snore.
"Ngggggoork."

What do you say? "Ssssssheeeesh, Honey! You sound like a boat!"

What has happened? The feelings have gone. Let me say this: 'That's normal. It happens to everyone. But it doesn't mean your love is gone so don't panic!

You can make a decision to love the snoring boat.

You start blaming your partner for the loss of love
This is nutty. But many people do it: when we don't feel in love, we think it's the fault of the other person. And so we fight him. Again, we fall out of love because we're human beings. It's nobody's fault. The moment you fall out of love, the real work begins.

Let me explain.

This is the most important point I'm going to make. (I got this from Scott Peck in his bestseller book, The Road Less traveled)

"Falling in love isn't love."

Here's why. When you fall in love…

a. No decision is required. Falling in love just happens.
b. No effort is required. Falling in love is like…. Well, falling.
c. No hard work is required. Falling in love is being bitten by the love bug.

On the other hand, true love requires all three : Decision, effort and lots of hard work. In the Bible, love is a command. You make it happen. Sure true love can only happen after you've fallen out of love.

When you begin choosing to love, even if you don't feel like doing it ---- that's true love. And that's the foundation of a lasting marriage.

MYTH 4: YOUR PARTNER WILL FULFILL YOU COMPLETELY

Again because falling in love satisfied you completely ----- you want the same satisfaction to last. No it won't. Consequence? You might fail to recognize a good relationship because your partner isn't fulfilling the needs you should be fulfilling yourself.

Here's the truth: the right partner will fulfill many of your needs but not all of them .

There are just some things your husband can't give you: you're self-worth. Your spirituality. Your inner happiness. These are things you have to work on your own. I've met lots of people who think they're dissatisfied with their marriage. In reality, they're dissatisfied with themselves. I've met lots of people who think they're bored with their marriages. And they complain to the high heavens how boring their husband or wife is ---- when in truth, they're really bored with life.

Meet your own needs. Find your happiness in God. Find your niche, your calling, your destiny. And then share your joy with your spouse.

MYTH 5 : IF IT'S TRUE LOVE YOU WON'T BE ATTRACTED TO ANYONE ELSE

If you believe in this myth, you panic when you get attracted to someone else, questioning the authenticity of your love for your spouse.

One man told me, 'Bo, I love my wife. Or I thought I did. But then I met this woman at work. She has nice make-up. She smells nice. She wears a pencil-cut skirt. When I go home, my wife is wearing a drab rag. Her hair is undone. She smells of vinegar. Gosh I am attracted to this girl at work."

Being attracted to someone is normal ----- even if you have a happy marriage. But being attracted doesn't mean falling into adultery.

Every time you think of the other woman, discipline your heart and say, 'Home, boy, Home!' and escort your heart back to your wife. Because if you feed your attraction with fantasies and constantly think about the other woman, it grows.

But if you starve your attraction, it dies a natural death.