Art of Elevator Pitching

Elevator Pitching is the art of getting your point across to an executive in less than 60 seconds, i.e. about the time you have with an executive in an elevator.

This website is a place where enterpreneurs have to pitch their products to the audience in less than 60 seconds. Some of the pitches are really great. Check it out !

I remember my mentor once telling me the importance of "back-of-envelope" or "back-of-napkin" presentations to executives and this seems to be the same concept but on steroids. It makes a lot of sense, especially for IT Security guys where the investments don't always translate to a predictable ROI.

Famous three laws !

Clarke’s Three Laws (from the book "Profiles of the Future" by Arthur C. Clarke) [1]

1. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
2. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Asimov's Laws of Robotics [2]

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

References
[1] NYT Article
[2] Wikipedia Article

Google Tech Talk: Vint Cerf (Co-Designer of the internet)

For those of who who are not aware, "Google Tech Talks" are videos of lectures delivered by eminent personalities encompassing a wide variety of topics. The following is a very good lecture by Vint Cerf, who, as some of you may know is credited as the co-founder of the internet. You may want to search for more at videos.google.com

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Slogans for computer networking design...

The following are a few good slogans that i picked up from my instructors (William Cheng) lecture notes for Computer Communications Course at USC.

1. Perfection is achieved not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2. The simplest explanation is the best - Occam’s razor
3. Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send - Jon Postel
4. In allocating resources, strive to avoid a disaster rather than to achieve an optimum - Butler Lampson