ishare

As A Working Female, Are You More Comfortable Working With Women Or Men?

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:33:35 +0100

For me, gender has little to do with it. I'm more comfortable working with intelligent people who are logical thinkers and not emotionally reactive. It doesn't matter whether the person is male or female.
One of the most emotionally reactive people I ever worked with was a grown adult who threw frequent tantrums, was very emotionally reactive, was considered a "brown-noser", and was deeply into office politics. This person happened to be a male. I was very uncomfortable around him and felt that I could never trust him.
Another person I worked with had a Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. Hyde personality. Every month like clockwork, she turned into the woman from hel_. She ranted, blew up over little things, had everyone walking on eggshells around her, and was very controlling. She had severe PMS. (Looking back on it, I think she needed to be on medication. This condition can be treated.)
I am most comfortable with people who respect others and expect respect in return. I like to work with people who are down to earth and like to "cut through the crap" and get things done. I also enjoy working with people who are very good at what they do - very competent and excellent leaders (regardless of title or position). It doesn't matter to me whether the person is male or female.
- Cindy K. Coffin     Training & Performance Consultant, Knowledge Manager, Content Developer

Well said, Cindy! It's about each individual, not gender.
- Laura Lingle

I've found that men and women of almost every culture can be congenial or difficult to work with, depending on their gender conditioning. Among my female English as a Second Language teacher colleagues there is a decided bias against certain "peasant" immigrant males, notably from Eastern European, Asian, Islamic and "Hispanic" backgrounds. My most disrespectful MCP (male chauvinist pig) student ever was a Bosnian Serb who would get up and walk out of the classroom periodically, strutting right in front of me (my dean and I suspended him, finally). An older teacher recounted horror stories of dealing with Saudis and Egyptians in the 1970s. As for colleagues, I avoid the pedantic, since, like cindy, I prefer the down-to-earth, but usually gender has little to do with functioning work relationships.
- Jean Waggoner    Certified Trainer at Center for Teacher Effectiveness

[...] I believe it depends more on the person's personality, not gender. Since most men I know are more easygoing than women, though, I responded "men." But I have made great friends with many women in the workplace, and most of the best bosses I've ever had were women. That being said, I've also had a couple of very nasty women bosses. Mostly, that's because they tried to act like a stereotypical man and not a woman. They were very negative, also. They did not reinforce positive behavior by being positive themselves.[...]
- Lisa Cunningham    Writer and Editor at Prose to Go

I, too, voted I'd rather work for a man, but I don't necessarily see that as a negative or an affront to feminism. I've had just as many 'bad' male bosses as female, but what I usually value in a male boss is how his directness/lack of emotionalism complements my working style. For me, the best boss is not only professional, etc., but is confident in his/her own ability. [...]
- Robin Enright Visual Merchandising Consultant

The topic was discussed quite a few times where I was working before. But the polls seems true. Many of my female colleagues were comfortable working with men at work place. That depends much on the natural tendencies. May be your theory can back it up.
- Anirudha Mude (male) Visual Effects Artist & 3D Generalist

While I am "more" comfortable working with women I work just as effectively with men. Perhaps it is because I have supervised many male dominated work groups or because I have 4 brothers ;-).[...]
- Rhonda Waters, Ph.D. President - The Mutare Group, Speaker, Trainer, Author

I like working with anyone who is intelligent, asks good questions and makes good choices.
- Debra Zimmer The Expert Marketing Coach, [LION]

UnPhotography: Show Us Your Best UnProfessional Photos

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:33:17 +0100

As I go through the net, I see a lot of really amazing photographs taken by professionals or talented hobbyists. And I just get jealous! Don't you?! I don't have the time or the means to go around taking interesting and beautiful photographs. All I have is my Nokia E71's 3.2MP camera and that's really fine by me.
I love taking photos whenever possible and I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars on a Nikon camera when I rarely have anything to photograph.

With the tons of impressive photographs on Deviantart, Picasa, Flickr, and many others, it would feel pointless and awkward to want to share and flaunt unprofessional photos.

What about you? Do you love taking photographs with your phone or your really ordinary digital camera? Do you love taking pictures of silly things you have around the house, or just some usual places you hang out at? Perhaps you took a really good picture of your family or friends and you were so in love with how good it looked for something so unprofessional.
If you do, then this is where you can share them! Just post a link in your comment to where we can go and check it out.

And here are some of my own:

This was at Khan ElSaboun which is a really old but famous soap factory in my country.

A town in North Lebanon as viewed from a restaurant I was in (if you're wondering, the food was good -yummy-)

This is Khan ElKhayateen; meaning the Tailors' market which is very famous in Lebanon. We see a lot of foreigners hanging out there and taking pictures, while the locals barely like to go through it!

This is Khobar's Corniche in KSA where I live.

You can check out the rest at http://picasaweb.google.com/the.manalyst/

UPDATED: Photos added by others in comments

One of Hayat's photos in Ireland via HTC Touch HD. Check out the rest in the comments.

Diablo's Jeddah view via iPhone 3G

Now let the sharing begin!

Superman is Dead, Vampires are Alive!

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:43:00 +0100

It seems that our notion of heroes have changed in the past few years, mainly heading to the dark side. Has anyone noticed that Superman is absent from the heroism scene? No hit movies (yes he returned but no body cared!), series (I am not counting Smallville because he is yet to call himself Superman and fly around with a red cape), or cartoons even! Yes, superman became very uncool. Who wants an alien pretending to be a normal human being as a hero! We want dark human beings who aren't normal with super powers. Vampires are what's "in" now: Twilight, New Moon, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. It's all about a hero who is a vegetarian nice living-dead vampire; sure because it would be too sick to love a vampire who kills humans. Even Spiderman had to go dark in his last feature to appeal to the masses.

Now the question is: how do we use that trend for our advantage? Simple. We hire vampires as our marketing people. We feature vampires using our products. We create products customized for vampires and vampire lovers. We open social communities for vampires with restaurants that offer "Tru Blood" and open buffet from willing volunteers. We maximize the marketing and creating of night life services…

Oh wait… VAMPIRES DON'T EXIST! Alas, that would've been a successful marketing niche.

I wonder what the next trend would be… zombies of intelligence, advocating for zombie rights?!

Irritated Movie Review: Wild Child (2008)

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:11:03 +0100

I remember a time -before I got hooked on Twitter, Linkedin and blogging- when I used to be so bored that all I did was watch movies and at times watch them again for lack of new movies. However lately, I haven't been having the time to watch all the movies I'm getting or research a movie before I get it (oh yes, I am a serious movie viewer and I research a movie on IMDB before deciding if it is worth watching or not) so I just get all available movies and watch them when I have the time.
That's how I got "Wild Child". If you're wondering why I got a year-old movie, well it's because I've seen all the new ones. And I'm reviewing it because it irritated me and that's always a good reason to blog about something.
Reading the title and know the movie is of the comedy genre, I expected something like a modern movie version of Dennis the Menace, just some boy running wild, getting in trouble and driving everyone crazy. How little did I know!
"Wild Child" is just another teen story about a Paris Hilton type of girl finding her true inner "normal" self amongst a bunch of friends she got really close with in a really short period. The movie was classically unoriginal and dull. Oh let's not forget the Ace student who controls and heads anything academically major in the school, and is always intolerant of new students who aren't as rigid and studious as her, plus she must have two avid followers at least. Why is it that every school must have one of those and she HAS to turn evil to "protect" her school and her ideologies!? Why can't it ever be just a really hard working student who likes to see the best in her fellow students?!
I know that movies aren't supposed to be taken seriously, most of the time, but we aren't talking about a Sci-Fi or action movie here. It's a movie about school life, and it should reflect at least a moderate vision of that. I mean what's the message here "If you are a brat whose only aim is to have fun, you will end up with a warm heart and a lot of loyal friends who would stand up for you. However, if you are a student who takes education seriously, you will probably end up burning down the school!".
All in all, the movie is good to watch if, like me, you like having some background entertaining noise as you enjoy other stuff like fiddling with your iPhone or browsing the net on your laptop.

Some Funny Ads I Love

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:57:40 +0100

I recently came across these ads on another friend's blog (Chris' Fresh Peel). I have to admit that I'm not the enthusiastic YouTuber. I can't just spend hours and hours clicking from one video to the next, because of my slow connection it takes loads of time to finish loading and finally play, and I just hate waiting! So I usually only get to see videos that others share with me. My point is: SHARE WITH ME!

iPhone's Ad:

I just totally loved that. It's simply funny in the way it communicates its message. It gets the point across without sucking up to the public to convince them of how great the iPhone it is. But I think that's only due to the fact that iPhone is just great on its own even without the advertisement. And I believe that's why they didn't have to make a great effort on that ad. It's just simply a guy holding his iPhone and stalking his girlfriend using the many applications that Apple offers. Funny, simple, smart and cost-effective! I gave it 5 stars.
Cadbury's Ad:

Simply amazing. I remember a while back reading something about on a blog and how Cadbury's ad was totally unrelated to its product but still just attracted more and more viewers on Youtube. I intended to see it but as always I got distracted by a million other thing online and then forgot about it. The message of that ad is simply... well, eh... chill out! It's only chocolate and chocolate doesn't need a message, and certainly not a chocolate celebrity like Cadbury, so probably they decided to have fun with it and change the traditional way people thought of chocolate. And they made that happen. Now every time you're enjoying your Cadbury, you'd be imagining a big heavy gorilla breathing down your neck. Enjoy!
Compare The Market's Ad:

I kept laughing at that ad for so long. It's just so smart and entertaining. The company chose to get its message across by sord of not speaking for itself! Just watch it and let me know what you think. I loved it. Did you?

Now share your favorite ads with me in the comments!