Fixing my issue with listening

Last week I was called by a close friend that I dont listen. This is not new, since another friend kept telling me the same thing. However getting this from somebody else makes me a bit more concern with the way I talk to people. For someone that talks with lots of people online and that do business with people online, listening is a key part of figuring out things.

I really want to know how to fix the way I get too focus on a topic and I shut down anything around it including some side comments to the conversation.

A few years back I read the book how to make friends and influence people, a key part of that book was about letting people talk and make them feel good by taking things off their chest. That makes people more relaxed and at ease as well as you can think much better on their approach to issues at task.

However there is a second issue that is actually paying attention to what they say. Sometimes they say things that I just simply decide to drop or not pay much mind. This is a bit more challenging since getting the semantics and relevance of the point they make, is not as easy to do in chat.

I have got on google and looked for some articles about this precise issue. Some tips I found useful was to clear space which is a bit challenging since you could be chatting with another person, or just doing something else while talking. Is good to leave those things and actually get more in the conversation.

The other problem however is that I physically can’t listen to a person, sometimes it happens because of Skype or the mic quality being so bad, or the person starts mumbling, so the fear of, saying “please repeat” a little too much, is a bit embarassing. But I guess if I talk a lot with that person, it should be a known problem and maybe typing it while talking about it might help.

My view on personal blogging

Recently a friend of mine started a personal blog, while another abandon her blog to pick up microblogging on Facebook. This made me start to realize the overall goal of personal blog. Who should be the audience? What is the reaction that the author should expect?

Sometimes a personal blog don’t need an audience, maybe the audience is a the author itself, in the future. Something like a diary, or just  to describe your thoughts and feelings at that time.

However thoughts and feelings vary a lot, you can be as shallow or deep as you want. And sometimes what you think is important at the moment, might not be as important in a few years. The professional experiences like breaking a new milestone might not be very relevant as describing that day’s mood.

I started blogging about my dreams that day since I think it was the perfect example of something so personal nobody else in the world can tell you about it and also sometimes is so unique that it would be hard to even invent it.

Blogging your fears, accidents, passions and traumas is also a bit of original and also makes you feel a bit more relaxed.

So going back to why is blogging still relevant on a world taken over by micro-blogging and social networks, sometimes you want that less relevance with people close in your life but still keep the door open for everyone to take a look into it.

 

 

Bitcoin research

This week a friend contact me regarding Bitcoins and a new opportunity. Last month I gave a talk that included bitcoin and lately I have heard that the value was returning to bitcoin and the ecosystem has grown since the last time I was following it.

Doing some research I came across a Bitcoin podcast called The Bitcoin Show, with Bruce Wagner. The show had a lot of content, and I think is exciting to see that the economy around it and the services are growing by the bit.

There has also been some bad news including the sinking of Bitconica one of the very first bitcoin trading platforms. It’s wiki profile say:

Was an online service that enabled leveraged speculation in its contract-for-difference (CFD) market against the Bitcoin to USD (BTC/USD) exchange rate.

There also has been a lot of new bitcoin resources like Bitcoin Magazine which is a real magazine in the US with digital issues and also good web portal explaining stories about Bitcoin.

Services like Bitcoin ventures which is an investor association for Bitcoin services. These services will enable grow the total ammount of services in the netsphere and maybe close the gap between digital currency and real currency.

I still need to look for more bitcoin services in Mexico which means that there could be a lot of opportunities giving the unaparent sphere of services. Then expand the propositon to latin-american services and eventually global services of bitcoins which are also the most aparent.

MtGrox is one of the many iconic companies of the Bitcoin revolution, located in Japan, Mt Grox is the premier reference for bitcoin exchanges and some Bitcoin events like conferences have already been held in New York City last year which a huge turn around.

Bit-Pay, is a payment processing which acts like a mall type of centralized portal for products and services. They have mobile apps, and also other type of services.

Bitcoinme is also a good blog about bitcoin althought like some of the other blogs I have seen, they are a bit outdated. But most of the information applies.

I hope to report some of the services that would come from Bitcoin as it evolves.

Tracing the Mexican Basketball World

Today I got contact by Google plus about tracing the different leagues and organizations around the basketball world in Mexico.

During the latest Olympics I was looking for the international leagues and how do they produce the other international teams.

From China, to Eastern Europe to Western Europe there seem to be leagues all around the world with a somewhat similar structure to the NBA. Also there is similar structures in basketball like the soccer leagues. But unlike soccer, the NBA is for most people THE baskeball world.

US Colege basketball is also very popular around the wold and since last season I have been watching some of these games last season. College basketball however is a bit overwealming and is hard to figure out the positioning of the teames in the overal league, who are the top spots, who are minor colleges and also the different class of teams. 

There is also laternative leagues like WNBA, and development league basketball.

But the question at hand is what about the national scene. In the past I was able to watch the local club in Quintana Roo and watched the team almost win a championship in the league finals. So here is the map of what I coudl sort out.

There is a professional league called LNBP, Liga nacional de baloncesto profesional. This would be something similar to the NBA in Mexico.

Then there is college mexican league which is a bit odd, since I only saw it mentioned by universities but there doesnt seem to be an official site. These are more like tournaments than leagues persay:

• CIRCUITO NACIONAL DE BALONCESTO ESTUDIANTIL (CINABE)
• CIRCUITO METROPOLITANO DE BALONCESTO ESTUDIANTIL (CIMEBAES)
• ESTATAL Y REGIONAL DE CONDDE Y UNIVERSIADA NACIONAL.
• Federación Mexicana de Baloncesto
• Asociacion Deportiva Mexicana de Basquetbol

There is a lot of loose ends basically because the lack of structure and contact information, there seems to be a national show but no blogs, podcast or wikipedia that can explain the overal structure of these organizations and asociations. There is a lot of work to be done, but I hope I could contact some people more specialized across the sport.

USA Basketball wins Gold

 Congratulations to the USA Basketball team for wining gold after a rather close game against Spain. It seems like the re-run of last Olympic game versus Spain where they were less than 5 points. Althought in Beijin Spain was even up front by 2pts while this time US kept in control for the most part of the game.

It was interesting how LeBron and Kobe did start to take charge but I guess they really never settle since after having some nice plays some other players started coming up like Durant or CP3. Also Spaniard defense were fouling quite strong, preventing from any fast break or showtime to go on.

In the end the USA did felt it close to a match but not enough to get into more than yellow alarm. Foul problems and others put Spain at a big handicap and even if the Gasol brothers were dangerous on the inside, so was LeBron cleaning the boards and guarding Pau and Mark.

The Alien comando task force

I had an action packed dream, which means there is guns, jumping, stealth, and a lot of explosions. This was one related to killing aliens. The funny twist is that you had to shoot him on the balls. I had a semi-automatic weapons, and a high caliber gun.

It was a bit like the High school of the death kind of feeling. then I was with this family that had all this kind of videogames and the funny thing is that the uzi followed me and talking to one of the kids remind me that I used to like these favorite gun types.

Then I had a another water toy weapon that looked more like the following picture, in my dream it was a video game gun though.

It was a fun dream and yes I killed some aliens and managed to survive. 🙂