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Wednesday 3 January 2007

What I'm thinking about lately #1

New Year is a(nother) time for making resolutions

Is it? When people asked me what's my new year resolution, I was stumped. I'm more of anytime-is-a-good-time-for-making-resolutions kind of person.

Learning and intrinsic motivation

Before the advent of modern schools and education systems, people go to become apprentices to learn things. And students seek the teacher (ever heard the saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear?). It's similar to the sekolah pondok system. They become sahabat, like the companions of Prophet Muhammad SAW. They form bonds beyond just teacher-student. Now why can't we have more of this today?

Young people are not told to figure out the things that would suit themselves best. Instead they are being shooed into things that are high-paying. We the earlier generation may have done a major disservice. Worse, I think we may have ruined them.

To excel in life and in any field, nothing beats in intrinsic motivation (the one coming from the person's own heart). Telling a school leaver that studying forestry is not a good career option? If he or she has the passion for it, there's no telling how far he or she will go.

We should encourage ourselves and others to find our intrinsic motivation and seek out passions that will allow us to fully make use of our unique talents. No later than now. Or risk living a regrettable life.

Not Vista, but Ubuntu

...is the operating system I'm eying right now for my next computer, insya-Allah. Ubuntu makes Linux approachable and once I'm running it, I'll likely get others on board.

My good friend profar kind-heartedly wanted to donate me a SATA hard disk, but my current (but dated) motherboard doesn't support SATA.

I've used legitimately licensed copies at least 3 kinds of Windows: 95, Me and XP. There have been happy times being with Microsoft, I'll admit. But until Microsoft learns to respect and trust customers (and not unleashing something like last year's crippling Windows Genuine Advantage spyware ), I'm packing my bags to head to more greener and freer pastures.

Too much or too good?

Here's an interesting remark by HP's then CEO Carly Fiorina about the company's new products' time to market. It was made shortly after her appointment. Listen to issue addressed.
"We make over three new products announcements a day. Can you remember them? Our customers can't."
Very interesting. I'll thinking about this a lot in the coming days.

5 comments:

ieka said...

ubuntu.. just to let you know aku baru je dapat ubuntu tu. alHamdulillah and thanx. tapi tak kesampaian lagi nak gunakan.. maybe sebulan dua lagi insha-Allah if i manage to get new pc for myself:)

satu lagi.. aku tak paham..ape yg ko maksudkan dgn last point tu? sorry.. i'm slow in getting the msg the CEO is trying to tell:p

Anonymous said...

haha just sometime ago somebody asked me about my new year resolution. I was like, huh? and then asked the person back, why would you need to wait for a new year to come to make a resolution?
Probably for most, a special day would likely make them to hold to their new "azam" much better perhaps? >_>


I've been thinking about the modern day learning systems and lifestyle for quite sometime already. Personally I don't like it much but it does bring it own pros which carter for most people.
In general you get a more knowledgeable society and in some way it does guarantee that as long as you follow the crowd most likely you'll secure your financial and stuff. But the rigidity the systems brings really is no fun.

May be the apprentice style of learning can be revived by starting our own learning circle or informal institution? Haha ... people usually are skeptic to those but at least it won't bring any harm in trying (well may be) :P

r.o.l. said...

ieka,
Glad that you CD has arrived.

About that last point: well, if I know you, I think you may be over thinking it a bit. I don't know, I could be wrong. But in my view, to be successful, we need to know where we are at present. We can't proceed to the future if we're lost and overwhelmed.

dzul,
I recently attended a seminar on education (as a rapporteur) and one speaker said that universities used to be about producing thinkers. Now it's about nation building. Which is good, but a bit market-centric, IMHO.

Mentorship is often found at the working level. In education we have the school's mentor-mentee program, which don't usually go well because people are obligated into doing it.

What I see is we need to find our own mentors and be ready to an apprentice for life. Life-long learning is not about job-worthy skills and knowledge but every skill necessary for success in life. (In other words, not just about those courses offered by higher learning institutes, but also skills and knowledge we can learn from around us.)

ieka said...

hahahah takdelah aku saje je tanye. aku tak pk mendalam pun. cuma tak paham apa yg nak highlight tu:D

most probably itulah the one u mentioned; that is what is happening in my organization when they have too many but the customers know tooo little only. what a waste of effort and time....

Anonymous said...

I got the quote from a book. Perhaps you and everyone else aren't aware of the context. Thanks for airing that thought. I will be more aware of context when writing from now on, insya-Allah.

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