Beyond code is a self development book targeted towards IT Professionals. I had this book in my wish list. My friend Srini was reading this book last week and i grabbed it from him. Its a simple and easy to read book. I enjoyed reading this book. I am planning to get couple of copies for my team.

This book explains tools and insights in 9 simple steps to help people to make difference in this competitive world.
Learn: We spend most of our time in delivering projects and remaining time in learning new technology skills. Apart from this, we should invest our time to learn how to build long-term relationships, how to be congruent, and how to develop one’s strengths.
Laugh: It is important to know how to avoid making mistakes, but is more important to know how to handle mistakes and move on by laughing at yourself. And when you can laugh at yourself, other people are more comfortable with you.
Look: The most obvious step to differentiate yourself is to look beyond expected. Looking for associations that have never existed before, looking for  relationships that will yield maximum benefits to both parties, looking for simplicity, and looking for clarity are some of the ways to
do something remarkable to receive the attention that you desire.
Lasting Impression: People you meet along the way constantly reshape your life and every engagement offers you the opportunity to make the lasting impression. We can leave a lasting impression by caring for other’s problem as if it is ours, solving the right problems, by getting things done, by going beyond the call of duty, and by being resourceful.
Love: To be successful, love what you do and do what is required. Nothing can substitute passion—not hard work, not intelligence.
Leverage: When you apply the concept of leverage in your life, you will accomplish more in 24 hours than you can on your own. The focus should not be on saving money, it should be on saving time. Money can be earned back, but you can not get back time!
Likeability: If we are likeable, people will often bend rules and make exceptions for us. To increase the likeability index, we need to make others feel good about themselves, be genuinely interested in other people, add measurable value in somebody’s life.
Listen: We all know the importance of listening well. Feedback is the breakfast of champions and if there is no listening, there is no feedback. If you want to be a champion, start listening and practice this ability consistently.
Lead: Leadership is not tied to a position. To lead, look for gaps in your organization and start filling those gaps.

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Code-Distinguish-Yourself-Simple/dp/1590791029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205762696&sr=8-1
http://www.adeologue.com/adeologue/2007/03/one_page_book_r_1.html


Thanks Srini !!!.

I borrowed the book Maverick from Venkat couple of weeks back. The tagline of the book was "The success story behind the world's most unusual workplace".

I started reading this book and within 2 pages, i knew this is not a regular business book. It talks about the idea of participative management and how Semler has transformed his company.  In Semler's own words , how he arrived at Semco's democratic organizational culture. Because Semco's management style is so unusual. A Very inspiring book.

Today, In IT Industry we are struggling to implement the concept of self-directed and self - managed teams. He has done it in manufacturing industry (in 1980's) and has demonstrated it successfully over the years.

Results from the Transformation:
A way in which workers decide when and where they work, who gets hired, and how much they get paid. :)

A Must read for managers or anyone who is running a company.

I really enjoyed reading this book (http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workplace/dp/0446670553)

My Special Thanks to Venkat for lending this book to me. Thank you Sir :)

Employee Factor Blog has an interesting post. It talks about impact of happiness on the Work and Work Environment. The findings are interesting....

Everyone is jumping on the happiness bandwagon. Why? A happy employee is not only good for the individual but it is good for business.  

HP is taking a lead in the happiness arena. What is their philosophy – “business runs better on happiness”.

The HP experiment was led by cognitive neuropsychologist Dr. David Lewis who designed a test to determine the impact of different working conditions on employees. The question – would freedom and flexibility make people happier and more productive?What did they do? They built two different environments.
The first resembled a chicken farm with cramped, cluttered surfaces and slow PCs and bulky CRT monitors.
The second was designed to give people the space and technology they needed to get on with their job, as well as providing the worker’s in the second office the option to work from home, if they chose.

What were the conclusions?The workers that were given the freedom, tools and trust to work in the second office experienced a dramatic improvement in their mental well being.

• Productivity shot up by 400 percent.
• Stress levels feel by more than 50 percent.
• IQ scores increased by an average of 28 percent.
• Blood pressure was lower.
• Short term memory improved. Volunteers retained 33 percent more information.

Original URL: http://employeefactor.com/2008/02/post_7.html

Microsoft, doing what it knows how to do best, has once again copied a great tool - striving to make the tool Microsoft’s own.  Granted, a number of times this has gone badly (the first version of MSUnit is such a case), but I am very hopeful this time around.
They did a near full scale copy of FireBug for Firefox and called it Developer Tools for IE 8.

http://elegantcode.com/2008/03/06/ie-team-ports-firebug-to-ie8/

Prakash S shared the URL for IE 8 Beta yesterday. I went to the web site and found that the features are good. I thought i should i give it a try and installed it.

I tried accessing couple of websites and i was able to see the websites.  Then i tried accessing our application and as expected it did not work. I saw an option Emulate IE7. I clicked and it asked me to close the browser and  open.

I did it and  boooom....  IE 8 Crashed. I could not get it working. I tried reinstalling it and nothing worked.

Lesson Learnt: Do not install any new version of the software till you get a SP1 :)

Some more: http://blogs.telerik.com/vladimirenchev/Posts/08-03-06/IE_strikes_again.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fvladimirenchev%2fposts.aspx