Free E-Books!

I am doing quite a lot of research on free E-Books these days. Here are a couple of links that I have discovered. Hope this would be of some use!

http://www.gutenberg.org/about/
(Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. )

http://www.esnips.com/web/eb00ks
http://esnips.com/web/ebook9999
http://www.esnips.com/web/abhisbooks
http://esnips.com/web/ebooks4u
(Lots of English fiction and nonfiction books are loaded here)

http://www.esnips.com/web/pgwodehouse (For PG WoodHouse)
http://www.esnips.com/web/calvinnhobbes (For Calvin Comics)
http://www.esnips.com/web/literature (For Classic English Literature)
http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1 (For Classic English Fiction)

http://fictionbook.ru/en/search?search=english
(Albeit a Russian Website, it contains lots of English Fiction Works)

Kudos to innumerable people who shared their collection over Internet!
Happy Reading for All!

A mentoring session in my organization

Today I had a session with one of the senior persons in our organization. I wouldn’t call it a session anyway; it was more like an informal chat. He made questions like where do I put myself in 5 yrs, 10 yrs and so on which reminded me of placement days! I don’t know how relevant these questions are in this fast changing world. Yet, there are many pearls of wisdom one can garner from the experience.

Some thoughts to ponder after the discussion!

• If you think you are comfortable in your current job, then its time to move on!
• Learning slackens once you reach 5 years of experience as you end up doing more of a coordination role later on.
• As you grow, your job depends the most on others’ contribution and inputs and hence people skills matter the most.

It felt nice that I had this session. I love what I do, and guess I got enough to mull over from this session. I need to redesign the way I work so that I brush up my skillet and still retain the excitement. A long way to go!

Living in a Daze!

Yes! That's what is happening with me since a week or so.. I am suffering from an intellectual amnesia and have stopped reading, writing and ofcourse working. Recently I caught up with a lovely book called "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Couldn't finish it until now, though the book is quite engaging. Ensconced by these mighty cubicled life, guess my aptitude to work dropped to an all time low. Well, guess its time to say: SOWMYA, WAKE UP!!!!

Playing the role of organizer- Part II

Yet another event organized by me! I can observe my reaction and the learning I got from organizing two makjor events. I was always kind of passive in organizing events was concerned. Since my childhood, I am one of those organized and obidient chaps who finishes her work in time. I rarely took initiative to organize events, and to compare. Somehow, I guess I have always enjoyed being a part of the participants or the audience. Guess, times are changing now.

When I ended up in my project in a Business Analyst role, I had no clue of what I am supposed to do! I thought its all about generating reports and presentations. Soon, I came to understand the unique culture of our project. I work in an ideation lab (a concept which is recently catching up!), so the kind of work I do is not quite imaginable at the first. I call myself as an unofficial mouthpiece and I have to interact with inumerous departments in our small office to get things done.

I have to run white paper presentation contests, and organize industry awareness sessions, discussion forums apart from the regular documentation demands from my role. Most of my work (almost 70%) goes in coordination and networking. And I love what I do (exceptions apply). Once a very good friend of mine told me that if u can give your job 6 out of 10, you should be happy. Guess I can give my role a 7. Playing my role can be fun. I know few people who play basket ball and darts in the office cubicle!

I have discovered quite a lot of golden truths along the way.
The key to make things happen is effective follow-up. (Matlab, you have to run after people until your work is done. Never trust on the memory of people, as I cant trust mine.)
Things often happens in the most unofficial way under the official cover!
Relationships matter the most in any organizing context.
However foolproof your preparation can be, there is always a thing to run in the end!
And last but not the least, Njoy what you do and the work becomes worthwhile, smile and the world smiles along with you!