Mark Zuckerberg’s 6 Ingredients For Success

Leadership guru Warren Bennis asked whether leaders are born or made. When asked if Wall Street would accept a young Mark Zuckerbergin his early 20s as CEO, Facebook investor Peter Thiel said: “Well, we’ll wait until he’s over 25 to file”. Wise move, considering that Mark’s title on his business cards read “I’m CEO, bitch”.
This week Facebook filed its S-1 to go public. Mark is 27. How Mark managed to launch a social networking site after Friendster had crashed during MySpace’s zenith has been widely chronicled. What’s been less discussed is how Mark mastered the six requirements to succeed, namely Ambition, Vision, Determination, Execution, Luck and Timing.
Ambition
“The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe”, Russian Proverb
The foundation and building block of any successful person is Ambition, or the desire for personal achievement.
People are driven by success, recognition, respect, money, power or fame. If you believe everything in The Social Network, Mark launched Facebook to level the playing field at Harvard and to succeed at getting girls. Success is relative, subjective and fluid; over time Mark’s definition of success grew to match his brainchild’s imprint.
Wearing your ambition on your sleeve will get you cut off at the knees, but ambition is required to succeed; the challenge is channeling it properly and managing your emotions around it. When the Winklevoss twins first hired Mark to build their social networking site, Mark never revealed his ambitions to build his own site. It was only later – far too late for the Winklevoss – that Mark revealed his true ambition.
Vision
A design glitch allowed MySpace users to customize their profiles. But that mixed blessing created a cacophonous environment which made users welcome Facebook’s clean interface.
Facebook wasn’t visionary in any revolutionary sense of the word. Where Facebook deserves credit was that Mark et al. recognized the need for a real directory of people, not merely users. Before Facebook it was nearly impossible to actually find people, you could “google” them but finding the person you wanted within one search wasn’t a given. We now take it for granted, but that extension of people search and connecting them was certainly evolutionary, and it’s worth noting that most successes are not radically new but extensions and improvements of existing paradigms.
The critics may note that Mark sometimes lacked charisma. In this context, charisma is a subset of vision: it allows you to convince others to buy into your vision, but charisma in and of itself is not a requirement to succeed, it’s an accelerant or amplifier. In Mark’s case, he has had the good fortune to let Facebook’s massive growth rates do the talking for him.
Execution
“Stay Focused, Keep Shipping”, Mark Zuckerberg
When you look back to Facebook’s functionality when it launched, it was bare bones. Facebook has added features while scaling users, literally changing jet engines at 30,000 feet without missing a beat. It’s easy to laugh at missteps like Beacon or the privacy dossier and fail to appreciate the velocity at which Facebook has evolved and grown.
Determination
To quote President Calvin Coolidge:
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Back in 1995, Steve Jobs added: “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance”.
Determination, drive, tenacity or persistence is the most important variable, demonstrated by Mark through his: relentless coding early on to launch Facebook to catch the Winklevoss brothers off guard; adding colleges; attacking MySpace; defending against the subsequent lawsuit from the twins; repeated encroaching into people’s privacy (which remains one of Mark’s Achilles heels). But, to his credit, he has repeatedly not cared or believed in himself enough to charge ahead no matter what. Mark is a constant reminder that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
So those were the first four traits: largely innate, can be learned, and things you can control. But without the next two, you won’t succeed.
Luck
“A great fortune depends on luck, a small one on diligence”, Chinese Proverb
In sports and in business, luck can be your best friend or your undoing.
Let’s face it: Mark’s had a horseshoe up his butt. Luck made him run into Sean Parker, who introduced him to Peter Thiel, without whom as an ally and first outside investor it’s unlikely he would have remained CEO to this day.
But you create your own luck, or when lady luck smiles down on you, you seize the opportunity.
Timing
Google wasn’t the first search engine, YouTube wasn’t the first video sharing site and Facebook certainly wasn’t the first social network. Geocities, Tripod, Friendster, Tribe Networks, MySpace are just some that come to mind.
Mark’s managed the clock all along: slowing down the Winklevoss brothers; launching Facebook on Harvard first to then expand to other colleges; relocating to California; refusing Viacom and Yahoo!’s offers; closing his deal with Microsoft.
While the comparisons to Google’s IPO are understandable, Google ushered a new Internet Bull run whereas Facebook’s is coming at the tail end of Zynga, Groupon, LinkedIn, Demand Media and Pandora’s – none of which have fared particularly well.
However, much like Google’s IPO made it the Internet stock bellwether, Facebook will become the de facto stock pick of individual and institutional investors, pushing demand to justify the lofty price-to-earnings and price-to-sales multiples.
There you have it: success = ambition + vision + execution + persistence + luck + timing; with the first four being things you can control and the last two being externalities that you cannot.
While I’ve praised and criticized him and Facebook, as a fellow entrepreneur, Mark is someone all builders look up to and admire despite his obvious mistakes – reminding me of the Michael Jordan quote: “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

The Two Monks: A Lesson On The Power Of The Question!

Two novice monks were walking in the garden and observing the older monks as they walked, meditated and smoked their pipes. The first novice turned to the second and asked, do you think it would be alright if we also smoked a pipe? The second novice bore witness to his own lack of knowledge and suggested that they should ask the senior monk. They both agreed that they would ask that evening.

The next morning the first novice came into the meditation garden and looking around he saw the second novice walking, meditating, and smoking a pipe. Excited with disbelief, the first monk ran unrestrained towards the second monk and when close enough expressed a declaration as much as a question, what are you doing? The second monk calmly replied, isn't it obvious! The first novice proceeded to assert, we said that we would ask the master! The second monk answered, yes and I did! The first monk responded, no!, you couldn't have for the master would have said no to you as he did to me!

Calmly the second novice inquired, what exactly did you ask the master? The first monk responded, I said, Master if I am in the garden meditating would it be alright if I smoke? Speaking in a voice full of criticism and judgment the first novice monk continued, and the Master told me, absolutely no! The second novice monk nodded his head in understanding and said, ah! when I questioned the master I said, Master, if I am in the garden smoking would it be alright if I meditate? And he said absolutely yes!

I guess its in the way you ask the question . . . . questions are not benign. The question and the structure of the question are not without their consequence. The road to wisdom is paved with questions! Only the correct questions asked in the proper manner can lead to the answers to the mysteries you may wish to understand and master.

We Believe in Creativity...

http://www.thetopthebest.com/the-best-creative-ideas.html

Innovative wedding card

The card (www.cometokochi.in) titled 'Come to Kochi' is an elaborate website with entertaining images and witty text centered on the wedding. The site is adorned with photos of the couple and their respective families, and a rhyme that spells out the saga of how they met and fell in love. This gives the entire card a very personal touch.
The practical side of things has been taken care of with equal enthusiasm. The site has a side menu pertaining to aspects such as the venue, ways to get there, accommodation, and things guests can do after the celebrations. The main site is hyperlinked to websites such as Cleartrip.com, Redbus.in, and Google Maps, thus offering detailed travel aid to the guests, who can pick their desired mode of transport -- air, train, or road.

Highway training made mandatory for new drivers.

Dubai: Training to drive on the highway for a minimum of two hours has been made mandatory to obtain a driving licence in Dubai, officials announced yesterday.

"After passing the road test, drivers will now have to undergo driving lessons along the highway, with trainers beside them, before they are issued a driver's licence," said Ahmad Hashim Behroozian, CEO of the Roads and Transport Authority's (RTA) Licensing Agency.

"This will ascertain the drivers' ability to cope with the vehicle as well as other vehicles on the road."

He was speaking at the launch of the unified curriculum for all driving institutes in Dubai.

The unified curriculum for training and qualifying those wishing to obtain driving licences for light motor vehicles has been distributed to all institutes and has been put into effect since the start of this year, he said.

Training on the highway is just one of the changes the new curriculum will introduce. Other significant changes include mandatory night driving lessons and lessons on sudden braking in case of emergency situations.

"It is a complete training package, which takes the learner from attitude development and road safety awareness to vehicle familiarisation, from driving in simple to complex road networks to night driving until finally to freeway driving."

At present, every driving school has its own curriculum. "They all cover the major skills but by unifying we have put a structure around the training process and based on this the schools can come up with improvements," Behroozian said.

The new curriculum — delivered in Arabic, English and Urdu — has two components. The theoretical component comprises eight basic lectures and videos — including road rules, attitude and accident case studies — which are mandatory for trainees to attend as they cover safety standards and groom them to become able drivers, he said. The practical component comprises five basic stages including emergency braking, parking exercises, night driving and highway driving.

No additional costs

The number of mandatory lessons will still continue to be 40 lessons. This way the curriculum will not mean any additional costs for the trainees, Behroozian said, adding that the drivers will benefit from better training at the same cost.

The curriculum will follow a systematic progressive teaching method, whereby trainees will have to demonstrate their proficiency before being allowed to progress to the next step.

Three specific areas along the highway have been identified by RTA for training drivers, Hussain Al Saffar, Director of Drivers Training and Qualification department at the RTA, told Gulf News.

The road connecting the Business Bay crossing to Al Hadiqa Road, Emirates Road from near the Sharjah boundary up to Al Aweer Interchange and Al Aweer road leading towards Hatta are the areas identified.

"While driving along the highway, trainees will not be assessed because they would already have passed the road test. But the training is a means of managing risk on the highways," he said.

Asked if the new curriculum will make it easier or harder for aspiring drivers, Sultan Al Marzouqi, Director of the Drivers Licensing department, said that the RTA's focus is on allowing only safe drivers on the roads.

"The pass rate at driving tests has more than doubled recently, going from 17 per cent on average between 2008 and 2010 to 30 per cent in 2011. Accidents and deaths have also come down. This means drivers are being trained better," he said.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/traffic-transport/highway-training-made-mandatory-for-new-drivers-1.970757

WILL WORLD END IN 2012?

The end of the world is near—December 21, 2012, to be exact—according to theories based on a purported ancient Maya prediction and fanned by the marketing machine behind the soon-to-be-released 2012 movie.

But could humankind really meet its end in 2012—drowned in apocalyptic floods, walloped by a secret planet, seared by an angry sun, or thrown overboard by speeding continents?

And did the ancient Maya—whose empire peaked between A.D. 250 and 900 in what is now Mexico and Central America—really predict the end of the world in 2012?

At least one aspect of the 2012, end-of-the-world hype is, for some people, all too real: the fear.

NASA's Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictions—some of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

"A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened," Morrison said.

"I've had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn't want to be around when the world ends," he said. "Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn't have to suffer through the end of the world."

(Related gallery: "Apocalypse Pictures—Ten Failed Doomsday Prophecies.")

Fortunately, with the help of scientists like Morrison, most of the predicted 2012 cataclysms are easily explained away.

2012 MYTH 1
Maya Predicted End of the World in 2012

The Maya calendar doesn't end in 2012, as some have said, and the ancients never viewed that year as the time of the end of the world, archaeologists say.

But December 21, 2012, (give or take a day) was nonetheless momentous to the Maya.

"It's the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar—1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 years—overturns and a new cycle begins," said Anthony Aveni, a Maya expert and archaeoastronomer at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered.

During the empire's heyday, the Maya invented the Long Count—a lengthy circular calendar that "transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself," Aveni said.

During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period: August 11, 3114 B.C. The Maya wrote that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0.

In December 2012 the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle.

"The idea is that time gets renewed, that the world gets renewed all over again—often after a period of stress—the same way we renew time on New Year's Day or even on Monday morning," said Aveni, author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.

2012 MYTH 2
Breakaway Continents Will Destroy Civilization

In some 2012 doomsday prophecies, the Earth becomes a deathtrap as it undergoes a "pole shift."

The planet's crust and mantle will suddenly shift, spinning around Earth's liquid-iron outer core like an orange's peel spinning around its fleshy fruit. (See what Einstein had to say about pole shifts.)

2012, the movie, envisions a Maya-predicted pole shift, triggered by an extreme gravitational pull on the planet—courtesy of a rare "galactic alignment"—and by massive solar radiation destabilizing the inner Earth by heating it.

Breakaway oceans and continents dump cities into the sea, thrust palm trees to the poles, and spawn earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other disasters. (Interactive: pole shift theories illustrated.)

Scientists dismiss such drastic scenarios, but some researchers have speculated that a subtler shift could occur—for example, if the distribution of mass on or inside the planet changed radically, due to, say, the melting of ice caps.

Princeton University geologist Adam Maloof has extensively studied pole shifts, and tackles this 2012 myth in 2012: Countdown to Armageddon, a National Geographic Channel documentary airing Sunday, November 8. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)

Maloof says magnetic evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, but the process took millions of years—slow enough that humanity wouldn't have felt the motion (quick guide to plate tectonics).

2012 MYTH 3
Galactic Alignment Spells Doom

Some sky-watchers believe 2012 will close with a "galactic alignment," which will occur for the first time in 26,000 years (for example, see the Web site Alignment 2012).

In this scenario, the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which in good viewing conditions appears as a cloudy stripe across the night sky.

Some fear that the lineup will somehow expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doom—perhaps through a "pole shift" (see above) or the stirring of the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart.

Others see the purported event in a positive light, as heralding the dawn of a new era in human consciousness.

NASA's Morrison has a different view.

"There is no 'galactic alignment' in 2012," he said, "or at least nothing out of the ordinary."

He explained that a type of "alignment" occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.

Horoscope writers may be excited by alignments, Morrison said. But "the reality is that alignments are of no interest to science. They mean nothing," he said. They create no changes in gravitational pull, solar radiation, planetary orbits, or anything else that would impact life on Earth.

The speculation over alignments isn't surprising, though, he said.

"Ordinary astronomical phenomena are imbued with a sense of threat by people who already think the world is going to end."

Regarding galactic alignments, University of Texas Maya expert David Stuart writes on his blog that "no ancient Maya text or artwork makes reference to anything of the kind."

Even so, the end date of the current Long Count cycle—winter solstice 2012—may be evidence of Maya astronomical skill, said Aveni, the archaeoastronomer.

"I don't rule out the likelihood that astronomy played a role" in the selection of 2012 as the cycle's terminus, he said.

Maya astronomers built observatories and, by observing the night skies and using mathematics, learned to accurately predict eclipses and other celestial phenomena. Aveni notes that the start date of the current cycle was likely tied to a solar zenith passage, when the sun crosses directly overhead, and its terminal date will fall on a December solstice, perhaps by design.

(Take a Maya Empire quiz.)

These choices, he said, may indicate that the Maya calendar is tied to seasonal agricultural cycles central to ancient survival.

2012 MYTH 4
Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth

Some say it's out there: a mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, on a collision course with Earth—or at least a disruptive flyby.

A direct hit would obliterate Earth, it's said. Even a near miss, some fear, could shower Earth with deadly asteroid impacts hurled our way by the planet's gravitational wake.

Could such an unknown planet really be headed our way in 2012, even just a little bit?

Well, no.

"There is no object out there," NASA astrobiologist Morrison said. "That's probably the most straightforward thing to say."

The origins of this theory actually predate widespread interest in 2012. Popularized in part by a woman who claims to receive messages from extraterrestrials, the Nibiru doomsday was originally predicted for 2003.

"If there were a planet or a brown dwarf or whatever that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it for the past decade and it would be visible to the naked eye by now," Morrison said.

"It's not there."

2012 MYTH 5
Solar Storms to Savage Earth

In some 2012 disaster scenarios, our own sun is the enemy.

Our friendly neighborhood star, it's rumored, will produce lethal eruptions of solar flares, turning up the heat on Earthlings.

Solar activity waxes and wanes according to approximately 11-year cycles. Big flares can indeed damage communications and other Earthly systems, but scientists have no indications the sun, at least in the short term, will unleash storms strong enough to fry the planet.

"As it turns out the sun isn't on schedule anyway," NASA astronomer Morrison said. "We expect that this cycle probably won't peak in 2012 but a year or two later." (See "Sun Oddly Quiet—Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age'?")

2012 MYTH 6
Maya Had Clear Predictions for 2012

If the Maya didn't expect the end of time in 2012, what exactly did they predict for that year?

Many scholars who've pored over the scattered evidence on Maya monuments say the empire didn't leave a clear record predicting that anything specific would happen in 2012.

The Maya did pass down a graphic—though undated—end-of-the-world scenario, described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex. The document describes a world destroyed by flood, a scenario imagined in many cultures and probably experienced, on a less apocalyptic scale, by ancient peoples (more on the Dresden Codex).

Aveni, the archaeoastronomer, said the scenario is not meant to be read literally—but as a lesson about human behavior.

He likens the cycles to our own New Year period, when the closing of an era is accompanied by frenetic activities and stress, followed by a rebirth period, when many people take stock and resolve to begin living better.

In fact, Aveni says, the Maya weren't much for predictions.

"The whole timekeeping scale is very past directed, not future directed," he said. "What you read on these monuments of the Long Count are events that connected Maya rulers with ancestors and the divine.

"The farther back you can plant your roots in deep time the better argument you can make that you're legit," Aveni said. "And I think that's why these Maya rulers were using Long Count time.

"It's not about a fixed prediction about what's going to happen."

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

MOVEMBER CHANGING THE FACE OF MEN'S HEALTH.

What is Movember All About.

The Movember Foundation was co-founded by Luke Slattery, Travis Garone, Adam Garone and Justin Coghlan in 2004. The Foundation is a not for profit organisation dedicated to having an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health. Movember started in Australia and has since grown to a global movement, running official campaigns in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States of America, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, South Africa and Finland. The idea of Movember came from a conversation between Luke Slattery and Travis Garone the year before the Foundation was established. Luke and Travis were watching the world go by and critiquing the comeback of fashion trends from the past when the question was raised, why no return of the moustache? Both felt that the Mo could do with a revival. So, with the seed of an idea, Luke and Travis talked a couple of mates into growing a moustache for one month and with that, Movember was born. In 2003, just 30 Mo Bros took part. The rules were simple; start on Movember 1st clean shaven and spend the remainder of the month growing a Mo. No money was raised; the idea was simply to see who could grow the better moustache. It wasn’t until 2004, having been overwhelmed by the conversations prompted by the previous year’s growth, that the founders decided to develop the idea into a cause that gave birth to the Movember Foundation. Having recognized that men, unlike women, were lacking a way to engage in their own health issues, they saw an opportunity to attach a purpose to growing a Mo, and began to look for a cause for which they could raise a bit of money and awareness in 2004. Together, they came across the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia(PCFA) representing a health issue about which very little was known at the time. In 2004, 450 Mo Bros took part and got their mates, friends and families to sponsor the growth of their Mo’s and, to everyone’s surprise, they raised $55,000. It was the largest single donation the PCFA had ever received Today, Movember takes place around the world. Motivated and inspired by what was happening in Australia, a further nine countries- New Zealand, USA, Canada, UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Ireland - now embrace the Mo in an official capacity each November. In addition, Movember is aware of Mo Bros & Sistas supporting the cause right across the globe, from Russia to Dubai, Hong Kong to Denmark and everywhere in between. Movember will continue to work to change established habits and attitudes and make men aware of the health risks they face, thereby increasing early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment. More importantly however, Movember’s success will remain with its ability to stay true to its origins, mates and moustaches, which is how it all began.

Creative Concepts Advertising Dubai - Staff Supporting to raise funds and awareness for men’s health.