Boredom, Information Management, Ideation and Hunt.
Somehow I am bored today and I think I go back to the old style blogging. Where I talk about things I do, did and will do. I am writing this while talking to a friend on phone, watching Rambo III on TV, fidgeting with Steve Jobs wallpaper on my Macbook. And thinking what to write. All at the same time. Talk of multitasking.
So, I am almost nearing the end of Snowball. Its a nicely written book on Warren Buffet‘s life. Apart from his personal life, it chronicles his business adventures and obviously, his lessons. Although, individual chapters are bit long, it is still a very readable book. The problem with reading thick books is that by the time you reach the 648th page, you forget what you read on the 37th. For the record and umpteenth time, Warren Buffet is one of my idols and if I could become just one-tenth of what he is, I would consider myself lucky.
I also started reading Value Investing for the second time. I am supposed to return it to Sandesh on the Meeting 2 of Value Investors Mumbai gang and hence the hurry.
This brings me to yet another thing that I have been thinking about for some time. Information. Its management and flaunting of the same. I read tons of things everyday. This includes newspapers, reviews and personal blogs. Mostly online. And as with all things, there is a lot of noise and a bit of signal. The trouble is archiving all this information and then retrieving it when required. Like, if I try and recall important events of the day, they would be Satyam’s new consultants (BCG) and investment bankers (GS and another boutique investment bank), 3 odd percent jump in the market, Supreme Court’s judgment in Vodafone’s tax case, TRAI’s call for companies who want to offer number portability services, Pfizer and Wyeth deal, usual noise in the press over Mangalore pub incident and then thousands of small noises in the startup scene in India and abroad.
I am sure I have forgotten lots of things that I would have found relevant while reading them. And am sure that by the time I want to use any of these things, I would not be able to conjure them up. So, how do you manage all that information? And more importantly, you know that you know all that but the world at large does not. And until the world at large knows it, there is no way you could put all this information that you know to use. It will become yet another Herculean effort in vain. Anyways, this is a rant for some other day.
A two point summary of the entire thing is that I need to understand information and its management and two, I love brainstorming, ideation and mental masturbation on things and I think I should be working towards a career ideating. But as they say, ideating is as commonplace as potatoes. Execution is what matters. Need to find someone who can execute things faster and better than I can ideate. Are you the one?