Conundrum

LOST aired its final episode a few days ago after six seasons of great, intellectually stimulating story telling by its writers. As is the case with great works of fiction, the internet is filled with debates among fans trying to explain everything that happened in summary. The most satisfying explanation I came across so far was from a Digg user . Although he doesn't link to the source, he claims it's from one of the producers. Following is his explanation verbatim (images and emphasis mine). First ... The Island: It was real. Everything that happened on the island that we saw throughout the 6 seasons was real. Forget the final image of the plane crash, it was put in purposely to f*&k with people's heads and show how far the show had come. They really crashed. They really survived. They really discovered Dharma and the Others. The Island keeps the balance of good and evil in the world. It always has and always will perform that role. And the Island will always need a &

The India Way of Leading Business - Imagining the Future of Leadership - Harvard Business Review "When Indian companies, for instance, take over publicly traded American firms — such as Tata Motors' acquisition of Ford's Jaguar and Land Rover divisions in 2008 — research confirms that the acquired firms increased both their efficiency and their profitability. Rather than appreciating the value of the India Way only upon acquisition, Western firms might be well advised to have a careful look in advance. Understanding the India Way and its drivers has become important for business managers everywhere."

"WALLDORF, Germany and Dublin, California, USA - May 12, 2010 - SAP (NYSE: SAP) and Sybase, Inc., Dublin, California (USA) (NYSE: SY) today announced that SAP’s subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Sybase, Inc., in a transaction that will bring the two information technology (IT) leaders together to enable companies to become better-run “unwired enterprises.” As a result of this transaction, customers will be able to better harness today’s explosion of data and deliver information and insight in real time to business consumers wherever they work so they can make faster, more informed decisions. Companies will benefit from greater productivity, speed and agility to help their businesses grow. Under the terms and conditions of the merger agreement, SAP America, Inc., will make an all cash tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Sybase common stock at $65.00 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $5.8 billi

HTML5 defines a standard way to embed video in a web page, using a "<video>" element. What does this mean for us? A few things. Soon all major browsers will support HTML5 (including firefox from version 4). This means that with HTML5 and an h.264 video codec in your system, you no longer have to install a Flash plugin to view video on the web. YouTube is already in beta with their HTML5 player . Which brings up my other find... Open Standard Media (OSM) Player is an all-in-one media player for the web. It is an industry changing, open source (GPLv3) media player that is written in jQuery to dynamically deliver any type of web media. Don't just take my word for it, just browse to http://www.mediafront.org/ with your HTML5 supported browser. Flash! Looks like your days are numbered. Once HTML5 is in all major browsers and toolkits such as JQuery and GWT add API components for the new HTML5 media tags and WebSockets , there won't be a need for 3rd party plugins.

Leading from Behind - Imagining the Future of Leadership - Harvard Business Review For now and into coming decade or so, the most effective leaders will lead from behind, not from the front — a phrase I've borrowed from none other than Nelson Mandela. In his autobiography, Mandela equated a great leader with a shepherd: "He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind." Hasn't this been the ideal for some for at least 2010 years? I always interpreted leadership this way, maybe because as a Christian the ultimate leader was considered the Good Shepherd. Leading the flock, keeping the sheep together and even times abandoning the rest, just to find and bring in that one member of the flock who has gone astray.

Google Analytics Applications are third party applications that uses APIs provided by Google to extend existing functionality of Analytics and Adwords. For instance if you are a marketer looking for better segmentation of your sites users, you can use an app from the gallery or build one of your own. If you are a developer, read this tutorial for sample code and a demo app.

The Open Social Development Environment is a nice, Apache 2.0 licensed Eclipse plugin that helps developers to ... Create an Open Social (gadget) project via a wizard Generate a foundation gadget by configuring its properties through a wizard and Preview the gadget using its embedded Shindig/Jetty runtime

Strategy's Golden Rule - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review In difference lie the seeds of disruption. In similarity, only obsolescence, and decay . As Michael Porter and Gary Hamel have both so eloquently discussed, the essence of strategy is discovering meaningful differences that make a firm inimitable, singular, and unique. Strategy's cornerstone, that is how to build a disruptively different business.