Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Productive Power of Siesta

I have always loved the concept of taking Siesta during working hours!

In fact, many Japansese offices have special rooms for employees to take a nap in the afternoon. Read more on Siesta in various cultures here. The Spanish Siesta is famous too.

ANI reports that "Google, Nike and Virgin Active are among some of the companies that already have facilities like dome-shaped, sci-fi-style sleep pods."

Recently, Tony Schwartz advocated "Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps". He identifies Naps as "powerful source of competitive advantage" and shares that afternoon naps are rejuvenating and "also improve perceptual skills, motor skills, reaction time and alertness."

Megan Hills lists "Ten tips for the perfect nap", the most important one being the advice to "Keep the nap to 20 minutes or less otherwise you wake in deep ‘slow-wave’ sleep which will make you feel sluggish and unfocused".

Back to my siesta pod!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

BizVidya - Empowering Entrepreneurs in India

Recently, I have been involved with a new initiative - BizVidya - Empowering Entrepreneurs in India.

After TEDIndia (held in November 2009 in Mysore), TED enthusiasts are showing up in various parts of India – a partial list is here: TEDxAhmedabad, TEDxBaroda, TEDxBengaluru, TEDxChennai, TEDxKonkan, TEDxMumbai, TEDxPilani, TEDxPune, TEDxShekhavati.

This list, at best, is a good start because the awareness about TED is still “poor”, to put it mildly. Many people who registered for TEDxGurgaon (held on Saturday, 27 February 2010 at Epicentre, Gurgaon), did not turn up (without communicating about their absence) and some attendees did not know about TED.

So, the task is cut out for us! Let us do our “two bits” in helping spread TED, a non-profit organization “devoted to giving millions of knowledge-seekers around the globe direct access to the world’s greatest thinkers and teachers”.