From The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff (ISBN 0-416-19526-1), this story illustrating the Taoist principle of Effortless Action or Wu Wei ??:

The Old Master and the Horse

A horse was tied outside a shop in a narrow Chinese village street. Whenever anyone would try to walk by, the horse would kick him. Before long, a small crowd of villages had gathered near the …

The woman in front of me at the supermarket checkout today had a box of Tim Tam Cornetto ice creams. Across the box was the tagline “no boring bits”.

Since when was dessert or ice cream “boring”?

Is this like businesses everywhere loudly declaring they are “dedicated to customer service and quality”?

Ice cream… mmmmm…

“Wealth and its origin will never join up.” Jeremy Boutsakis

The gym I go to, Fitness First, has their own slick in-gym music TV channel with commercials. OK, so we cannot escape advertising. Not such a big deal right? But what if I told you that some of the commercials Fitness First runs in the gym, while you are working out, are for liposuction and cosmetic surgery?

I am seriously offended.

So what’s next? Pizza and fried chicken ads? I …

I have never really understood the reason behind liquid stock. You know, the type you buy in 1 litre bricks from the supermarket.

Stock cubes are much easy to carry around, take up less room, and results in less waste (less packaging). Assuming both products essentially come from the same production line and contains more or less the same ingredients, why are we wasting all that …

If you haven’t noticed, there’s currently a spate of spam or PC intrusion attempts using emails disguised as ecard notifications. You know, the ones that say “you have received an ecard” with a link to click on. Which presumably then causes trojan horses and all sorts of other nasties to be installed on your PC.

This is so sad. Ecards were a great way to keep in touch with …

Smart Company posted this:

Can’t afford to give your staff a pay rise? Boost their egos instead with a significant sounding title. … it could well result in them getting a better job with more pay somewhere else!

Good grief. How much more dishonest and superficial can you get?!!! I can’t believe they seem to be endorsing this behaviour. So much for being “Smart” if they were…

Stuck mulling over a challenge? Stumped by a dilemma? Want another viewpoint on an issue?

Ask me!

I can’t promise to fix anything - but if I respond to your question on this blog, what you will get is some of my head space and attention.

Send questions to ask@eicolab.com.au. Yes, questions should really fall within the topics covered in this blog. And conversations will …

“Those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it.”
Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

There are two types of business leaders: Those who find themselves in a position of leadership because of genuine aptitude, and those who get there via political manipulations, stepping on others, and bullying.

The former would be surrounded by real loyalty, achieving consistent outcomes, and probably in …

My friend Mark drew my attention to an odd oversight on Vodafone’s new customer login area.

Say you log in to use their Web2TXT service. You clearly see “Web2TXT” listed as a service (1) in the main body of the web page. So you click on it. But nothing happens because it is not a link!

None of the items shown in the main body of the …