Category: Careers

Soledad and the power of storytelling

Sarat PratapchandranLeave a comment

American television personality, Soledad O”Brien offers us consolation in a world of us versus them. Our infinite power to tell stories will help us learn more about each other.

Soledad grew up as a biracial kid in a mostly White town in New York . Here, she understood why race was not a social construct. Race is real in America.  We are very much connected to ethnic origins, privilege, poverty, social standing and accomplishments.

Her parents were immigrants.  Her dad was Australian and her mom came from Cuba and it was tough for them to get get married and raise a family in the America of the 50s and the 60s.

In television, Soledad learned why producers had pre-conceived notions of stories even before they were aired. Stories of poor people almost always led with negative connotations of where they came from, unemployment in their communities, drugs and violence. Very rarely did producers take notice of the individual human being, their successes, their accomplishments. The personality of the poor gets sadly forgotten in American television, especially if you are black or latino. Soledad was delivering the Elizabeth D. Rockwell lecture at the University of Houston recently.

Today’s television relies on talking heads, who get an annual payment and claim to be so-called experts on specific subjects. Armchair journalists never got real stories from the field and I learned that in journalism school.

In-depth, incisive, deliberate reporting  is costly. Real reporting requires hard work, patience and the courage to ask hard questions. We have to be vulnerable and learn and understand the context of the subjects we are interviewing.

Sadly, our evening news revolves around shootings, the cat that got lost in the alley or an angry parent who found that the school bus was late.

I will leave you with a profound quote from Soledad: “I’ve learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom-how great is that?”

Take challenges headlong: 7 lucky tips to boost efficiency

Sarat PratapchandranLeave a comment

Kristin Romaine runs CO+FOUNDATION , the world’s first coworking space that provides resources for for-profit and nonprofits to work on a shared space. Located in downtown Phoenix, Romaine is charged with securing resources for this vibrant start-up and she practices “fanatic discipline” to take it to the next level. Romaine and her colleague, Kay Transtrum recently shared a few tips that can make us more efficient at work. I’ve used some of these and they will help you get things done and end your day well. They are all free tools for collaboration that we can easily use and I’ve mixed some of my ideas and Romaine’s to offer a few tips for the work week.

  1. Plan your day the night before. Choose 3 major things that you can do well. If you have others, do it after the first three major ones are tackled. Try to do work in increments of 30 minutes.
  2. Follow success guru, Brian Tracy’s “Eat that frog,” concept that will help you prioritize. I’ve tried it and it really works. Here is a video to get you started.
  3. Invest a couple of minutes between major tasks to play some Web games. Play small games for a couple of minutes and this will interrupt patterns in your brain and help you work efficiently. A friend’s company encourages employees to play ping pong inside the office to get them distracted amid tough projects and tight deadlines. Find something that will work within your space and it does not need to be fancy.
  4. Use Boomerang from GMail to schedule your emails. According to Romaine, the basic service from Boomerang will help you schedule a sizeable number of emails at different times of the day. This will help you work on them at your leisure and have them go to different constituents at different times. The tip here is to use your downtime to take care of emails that you can easily schedule.
  5. Use Google Keep to calendar your tasks and priorities. It is easy to use, free and very intuitive.
  6. Meditate for ten minutes, twice daily. This will help you get refocused and take on challenging tasks with ease. This will also offer you good ideas to deal with conflict and manage people better.
  7. End your day thinking about impact and on a positive note. Romaine and her colleagues follow their own rule: #LDTNMW (Let’s Do It No Matter What).Think of how much your work has moved your organization forward and let’s do it no matter what!