Strategy to avoid jinxing my New Year resolutions

New Year resolutions have never been quite my thing and every year as friends and colleagues have put together their resolutions, I have had my “bah” “humbug” moments – telling them there’s no point in making resolutions that they had no intention of keeping. This year too just before the clock struck midnight heralding the onset of a brand new year, I wondered about the many people who would be wasting their time making resolutions only to break them the very next day.

Then something occurred to me. What if I made resolutions the week after New Year’s? Maybe they wouldn’t be jinxed and there would be a better chance of living up to them. Why make them at all you might ask? There is a loony rationale to it actually. When you focus on what you need to do to improve your personal and work life, your relationships, the way you function as a human being, you actually take the time to stop and think, to highlight in your mind your priorities and ways to better lead your own life and impact the lives of those around you.

So I relaxed on my beanbag, closed my eyes and thought of things I would like to change. Here is a list of 10 resolutions that I came up with.

1. Try and be more patient – God do I need this!

Take a deep breath before reacting in annoyance to anything that happens. There are any number of times one reacts in anger to something someone may have said or done. Regrets are of no use later so might as well ponder before reacting.

2. Focus on a few things, make them happen first and then embark on other activities

Passion and excitement are great but they often lead to total chaos if one is not careful. Balance is important, and the ability to recognize how much one can execute during a given time frame.

3. Get back to blogging more regularly

I enjoy writing/blogging so much but of late I have let life get the better of me – and have neglected my blog. That is just not on. I need to get back to regular blogging. It is one of the things that has kept me sane over the years (yes yes it may be hard to believe but I am quite sane )

4. Take a day off every week

The rollercoaster ride I have been on 24×7 for the past few years has turned me into a workaholic and is beginning to take its toll. Need to take at least a day off every week to unwind, laze, just chill!

5. Save Energy

No no not mine! Energy as in power. Make sure all switches in the house are off when they are not in use, that all lights, fans, ACs in the office are off when the team heads out for lunch or when i go out for meetings. Emphasize on household and office teams of the importance of saving energy.

6. Eat more sensibly

This doesn’t mean I am going on a diet. It only means that I will eat oily or deep fried foods, sweets, etc less often. Concentrate on lunches which comprise of soup and/salads and the day I have a heavier lunch, have the soup/salad for dinner. So eating healthier as often as I can without depriving myself of food I enjoy.

7. Start some sort of regular light exercise

This is to keep the body from rusting and getting squeaky. Needs to keep functioning if I am to do all the things I want to.

8. Start a P@SHA show online

Have been thinking about this for so long. About time I stopped procrastinating and actually did it! This is the year!

9. Document … document … document!

Ensure all initiatives are documented and shared. Blowing your own trumpet (in so far as the organization you work for is concerned) is actually a good thing and is in fact essential good practice.

10. Plod on! Ignore the negativity!

Don’t let the insensitivity and negativity of a few individuals weigh you down. Best to focus on the positive, do what needs to be done and march on.

Innovation initiatives?

Did you know that Pakistan has a Federal Innovation Board? Well, I didn’t know this very important fact until a few weeks ago when I was invited to make a presentation on “Innovation in the Pakistan IT industry” at an Innovation workshop organized by the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Karachi.

So what does this Board do one might ask? Well, we were told that in fact the Board hasn’t yet had its first meeting in all the time that it has existed. That is innovative indeed!

Visiting the CSF website I was a little confused. Apparently an Innovation Strategy Working Group (I-SWOG) was set up in April 2009 with the purpose of developing a National Innovation Strategy Framework and for the preparation of a  National Innovation Policy for submission to the Cabinet. The Board has been created to oversee all activities related to fostering an innovation ecosystem in Pakistan. Now I am not sure if there are two Boards. They had a couple of meetings in May 2009 and then there is no more information on the site regarding any other activities until this Innovation Workshop which I was a part of on March 4, 2010.

I am told that there is a fresh move to reconstitute the Board and actually move ahead with developing a strategy. So let’s see how things progress. I wish them luck.

What I really wanted to highlight in this post was that there is some great stuff happening in Pakistan and some of it is being driven by the HEC. Dr. Sohail Naqvi’s presentation (he is the Executive Director of the HEC) was an eye-opener in many ways. He talked about some of the initiatives taken by the HEC which included the setting up of a Mac Product Design Lab at the University of Gujrat where women come and design some amazing furniture and products. There is a lot of work being done to improve the quality as well as increase the production of citrus and other agricultural produce with amazing results – almost triple the amount that was being produced before. There is work being done in the development of vaccines and much much more. I pointedly asked Dr. Naqvi why some of these amazing initiatives were not highlighted in the press and and different industry events. He responded that both of us were guilty of the same thing because when I made my presentation on Innovation in the IT industry, it left quite a few people in the room wide-eyed. There is so much innovation taking place in our sector that no-one appears to know about. Obviously Sohail and I will both need to get our act together and showcase all the great work that is taking place a lot more.

Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, Member Science & Technology Planning Commission talked about the Competitiveness and Innovation in Pakistan’s Manufacturing industry. This was followed by a presentation from Dr. Lars Eklund, Founder of the Scandinavian Competitiveness Group who talked about the different innovation models that had been adopted by various governments in Sweden and Finland.

Breaking for tea, the roundtable was then broken up into 4 groups who then discussed what the objectives of Pakistan’s short and long term innovation system should be as well as the challenges that would need to be overcome.

It was a good session that produced some very useful ideas. However, one needs to see where this will go from here. It was good to see people like Faizan Buzdar of Scrybe participating in the workshop but I wish more young people had been involved. After all this strategy is going to affect them. They should be involved in its formulation. Perhaps I am jumping the gun and there will be some move on the part of Arthur Banyan and his team at CSF and Sohail Naqvi and his team at HEC to take this to the universities for input before a concept paper in finalized. Good luck guys. We are here to help in any way we can.