How to Win a Nobel Prize?

I’ve been trying to find a purpose in the world lately, or at least one that garners quick recognition and ego stroking. Winning a Gold medal seemed plausible, until I thought about the intense level of exercise associated with that feat. It’s not that I’m lazy; I just care about my joints! Oh, and the minor fact that I gave up on competitive sports around the age of 16 and could be beaten by a child in most fields.

Then it occurred to me, I’m going to win the Nobel Prize! If Al Gore can sweet talk his way into taking credit for the internet and the discovery of global warming, then there must be something I can do? On my daily hour commute from 680 to 24 to 580 to 80 to Endsight in Berkeley, I noticed a billboard for the DaVinci exhibit at the San Jose Technological Museum (http://www.thetech.org/leonardo/) . This got me thinking about thinking.

Leonardo DaVinci has to be one of the sweetest people ever (and not cause he happens to also be the name of my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), but because how much came out of that noggin. I saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, read the DaVinci Code and rode on the DaVinci bandwagon for the past few years.  He definitely would have won the Nobel Prize. Maybe I should invent a time machine, go back in time, give him a Nobel Prize and in the process win one for myself- two birds with one stone! (Probably should clear up that whole Priory of Scion, blood line controversy while I’m at it).

This may all seem too optimistic and slightly offensive to the people who have worked their butts off to achieve this prestigious award. But the story goes that in the late 19^th century, US congress wanted to close the patent office because all that needed to be invented was invented! Point being, that people and society will never exhaust all resources and innovation needed for invention. 

Just because I’m not Harvard trained, don’t work in a lab, or have the political PR machine that Al Gore has access to, doesn’t mean I can’t change the world. Homer Simpson had this same idea in a classic Simposn’s episode trying to “out invent” Thomas Edison. But it was his accidental invention of a six legged chair, stemmed from his laziness, which eventually led him to the feeling of success.  So maybe the world will appreciate my desire for efficiency more than some deep athletic ability. My friends and I have come up with some pretty clever ideas while sitting in my apartment pondering the world. If only I had written those ideas down and acted on them…

And if this Nobel Prize thing doesn’t pan out, there is always an Oscar.   

-Lauren DaVinci

Shift Your Company’s Health Paradigm

Let’s break the 4^th wall and come out into the open that I am a business development associate, and as my title reflects, I am responsible for developing the business of Endsight. Coming from a much more analytical and sociological background, I have been trying to come to a conclusion as to what exactly this entails for me. I know that Endsight sells outsourced IT management, that we assign a CIO, that we have system administrators and help desk guys. But so what?

This is all spectacular and innovative for clients but unless people know what that means for them, this laundry list of services will never take on their full potential. I call people all day long, people with the same problems and issues as I do, but unless I can resolve a pain, whether it be loss of productivity, finances, or customers, people will not take the time to hear about our company. Yes they may be  interested in our service, but they are really interested in what it can DO for them. This big WHAT is stress!

People always want a quick fix for stress and inconvenience in their lives. The same holds true for IT mangement and computer support. But everything in life takes a re-adjustment of perspective for long term goals to be accomplished. To lose weight, you cannot just react to weight gain but proactively help yourself through daily maintenance. And this process is an entire adjustment in thinking that requires someone to change their daily habits and complete nutrition paradigm. The same holds true with IT support. For the burden and stress of computer, server, and application maintenance, one must shift their way of thinking.

Yes- computer support has been done, but we aren’t trying to provide the latest “fad”, but a new way of thinking about computer health and the health of your company.  Humans are subject to their surroundings and must change as they become older, as health concerns arise, as politics evolve- in a long term fashion. A business is not much different in the organic sense of change.

And let’s now come full circle to the underlying issue of stress. If humans and companies are not much different, then shouldn’t they both address the issue of stress similarly? People become fatigued, irritable, desperate, unfocused and even in pain during the onset of stress. Don’t companies then suffer from these same symptoms? 

Endsight provides an awesome service from competent people, but what we really do is shift your business health paradigm. Stress cannot be ignored- it’s the fundamental problem which seems to cause the chain reactions in our lives, and in our businesses, that we dread the most.