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Call Me Ted is a great autobiography about the life of Media Mogul Ted Turner, the founder of the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. The book is a no-holds-barred and vulnerable story of his life, his upbringing, lessons learned from his dad, Sister’s Death, Parent’s Divorce, and Father’s Suicide, his turbulent marriage life (3 Divorces), his business philosophy, becoming a billionaire, his boisterousness, his love for sailing, buying the Atlanta Braves among other inspiring stories.

“Son, you be sure to set your goals so high that you can’t possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you’ll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low and now I’m having a hard time coming up with new ones.”

Ted became one of the richest men in the world, the largest land owner in the United States, revolutionized the television business with the creation of TBS and CNN, became a champion sailor and winner of the America’s Cup, and took home a World Series championship trophy in 1995 as owner of the Atlanta Braves.

An innovative entrepreneur, outspoken nonconformist, and groundbreaking philanthropist, Ted Turner is truly a living legend, and now, for the first time, he reveals his personal story. From his difficult childhood to the successful launch of his media empire to the catastrophic AOL/Time Warner deal, Turner spares no details or feelings and takes the reader along on a wild and sometimes bumpy ride.

Here are my favourite take aways from reading, Call Me Ted by Ted Turner.

As per study, 61% of people do check their smartphones after awakening in the morning.

NOMOPHOBIA or NO MObile PHone PhoBIA is used to describe a psychological condition when people have a fear of being detached from mobile phone connectivity. The term “NomoPhobia” was coined during a 2008 study by the UK Post Office who commissioned, YouGov, a UK-based research organization, to evaluate anxieties suffered by mobile phone users.

The study found that nearly

  •  53% of mobile phone users in Britain tend to be anxious when they “lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage”.
  • The study, sampled 2,163 people, found that about 58% of men and 47% of women suffer from a phobia, and an additional 9% feel stressed when their mobile phones are off. 55% of those surveyed cited keeping in touch with friends or family as the main reason that they got anxious when they could not use their mobile phones.
  • The study compared stress levels induced by the average case of nomophobia to be on-par with those of “wedding day jitters” and trips to the dentist.

I’ve found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing.

Academy Award-winning and Tony Award-winning actor and director, Denzel Washington delivered a very inspiring speech at the University of Pennsylvania commencement address on Monday, May 16, 2011.

Denzel Washington’s Fall Forward 2011 University of Pennsylvania Commencement Speech Transcript

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Former Yale Professor, William Deresiewicz in his book Excellent Sheep delves into the issues facing the Ivy League admission process, the facade, the pressure on students to succeed, the American elites, and other thought-provoking insights on higher education. The book was inspired by an essay William wrote in the American Scholar: “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education.”

As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.

“The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.”

Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz:

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According to Author and Entrepreneur Daniel Priestley in his very insightful book, Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business that Works, the age of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs is beckoning, the days of the industrial age and worker is gradually coming to an end. The book shares great insights on embracing an entrepreneurial mindset, the factors speeding up the entrepreneurial revolution, and ways to be a part of the revolution.

The slow dinosaurs of the industrial age are being outpaced by fast-moving start-ups, ambitious small businesses and technological innovators. 

“An entrepreneur is simply someone who spots an opportunity and acts to make it into a commercial success.”

Cloud Computing is a technology that is often misunderstood and misappropriated by a lot of individuals and organizations. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-145;

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models. 

In a 2017 Gartner’s Report: Cloud Strategy Leadership: Gartner Insights on How and Why Leaders Must Implement Cloud Computing. According to David Mitchell Smith, Vice President and Gartner Fellow, there are 10 misleading and dangerous myths of cloud computing:

  1. Cloud Is Always About Money

Gartner surveys show that cost savings account for the reason a small number of organizations use the public cloud. Saving money may end up one of the benefits, but it should not be taken for granted.

Advice: Utilize total cost of ownership and other models on a case-by-case basis and assess the implications of moving from capital expenditure (capex) to operating expenditure (opex).

2. You Have to Be Cloud to Be Good

Are you “cloud washing” (referring to the tendency to call things cloud that are not)? As a result, people are falling into the trap of believing that if something is good it has to be cloud or that if it is not cloud-based it cannot be good.

Advice: Call things what they are. Many other capabilities (e.g., automation, virtualization) and characteristics can be good and do not need to be cloud-washed.

3. Cloud Should Be Used for Everything

Cloud is a good fit in organizations where value is placed on flexibility and the business has the ability to consume and pay for only what is needed when needed. Unless there are cost savings, moving a legacy application that doesn’t change is not a good candidate for cloud.

Advice: The cloud may not benefit all workloads equally. Don’t be afraid to propose noncloud solutions when appropriate.

4. “The CEO Says So” Is a Cloud Strategy

When asked about what their cloud strategy is, many companies don’t have one, and the default is often (stated or not) that they are just doing what their CEO wants.

Advice: A cloud strategy begins by identifying business goals and mapping potential benefits of the cloud to them, while mitigating the potential drawbacks.

5. We Need One Cloud Strategy or Vendor

The nature of cloud services and existing interoperability standards can make the issue of limiting options less important, as those details are often hidden from the consumer.

Advice: A cloud strategy should be based on aligning business goals with potential benefits. A single cloud strategy makes sense if it makes use of a decision framework that allows for and expects multiple answers.

6. Cloud Is Less Secure Than On-Premises Capabilities

Cloud computing is perceived as less secure. To date, there have been very few security breaches in the public cloud — most breaches continue to involve on-premises data center environments.

Advice: Don’t assume that cloud providers are not secure, but also don’t assume they are. Cloud providers should have to demonstrate their capabilities, but once they have done so, there is no reason to believe their offerings cannot be secure.

7. Cloud Is Not for Mission-Critical Use

Cloud computing is not all or nothing. It is being adopted (and should be adopted) in steps and in specific cases.

Advice: Mission-critical can mean different things. If it means complex systems, approaches such as taking a phased approach can ease the movement to the cloud. Hybrid solutions can also play a key role.

8. Cloud = Data Center

Most cloud decisions are not (and should not be) about completely shutting down data centers and moving everything to the cloud.

Advice: Look at cloud decisions on a workload-by workload basis, rather than taking an “all or nothing” approach.

9. Migrating to the Cloud Means You Automatically Get All Cloud Characteristics

Many migrations to the cloud are “lift and shift” rehosting, or other movements that do not exhibit cloud characteristics at higher levels, while other types of cloud migration (refactoring and rewriting, for example) typically do offer more of these characteristics. The most common use case for the cloud, however, is new applications.

Advice: Distinguish between applications hosted in the cloud from cloud services. There are “half steps” to the cloud that have some benefits (there is no need to buy hardware, for example) and these can be valuable. However, they do not provide the same outcomes.

10. Virtualization = Private Cloud

Virtualization is a commonly used enabling technology for cloud computing. However, it is not the only way to implement cloud computing. Not only is it not necessary, it is not sufficient.

Advice: Use the correct term to describe what you are building. You don’t have to be cloud to be good. Avoid setting inaccurate expectations and adding to cloud confusion.