The Hindu Business Line : Of what moves mind, and matter

YOU know that small is beautiful. But small is what constitutes the science of nano. Not just small, but infinitesimally small. For instance, "if the measurement known as a nanometer were scaled up to the width of your fingernail, then your fingernail would be the size of Delaware and your thumb would be the size of Florida", according to the blurb of "Nanocosm" by William Illsey Atkinson - a not-so-big book about nanotechnology and the big changes coming from the inconceivably small. Let's measure it up:

Like all frontiers, a scientific frontier is a border zone: a dim, mysterious landscape where one thing becomes another. If you're a scientist, you want to examine this conceptual interface with ever greater depth and precision. Interestingly enough, nanoscience has recently identified a material interface that exactly corresponds to this ideological one. This material frontier is proving to be the biggest single means to advance our knowledge of the nanocosm; it is on the stage of MatSci (materials science) that most other nanosciences are converging.

Fluidics is the science and technology of moving fluids through progressively smaller conduits. What the Swiss may lack in cutting-edge theory, they make up for in sheer accuracy. And in nanotechnology, more than in any other human endeavour, God is in such details. The Swiss have identified a subarea of moulded nanofluidics that not only penetrates but dominates its market. For Switzerland, soft nano could prove to be the third millennium's commercial equivalent of the wristwatch.

Some of the biggest organisations in history owe their success less to merit than to rhetoric. This is as true today, in the third millennium A.D., as it was in the third millennium B.C. Orthodox religions; the personality cults of Mao, Stalin, or Mobutu Sese Seko; a computer operating system with spiffy graphic user interfaces based on ancient, creaky op systems - none of these rest on the objective supremacy of their moral or technical values. Instead, they all constitute triumphs of marketing. DOS routinely gums, jams, and slows down the most modern processing hardware because it has the architectural elegance of a Calcutta shantytown.

Say you're a pharmaceutical scientist who wants to know the sum total of a new drug's effect on human kidney cells. You merely expose two identical biochips to genetic DNA taken from two different cell groups: one treated with a drug, and one (called the `control') left untreated. The biochips tell you within minutes which human genes are activated when the drug does its work.

A nanobot that fit into a 50 nm cube might require half a billion lines of ROM software, permanently embedded somewhere in its unthinkably miniscule frame. Even molecular memory would be too clunky for a working nanobot that was itself molecule-sized. Something else would have to be found.

Get on to a search for a god of little things.

Gliding into a job

OVER seven million copies in print, translated in a dozen languages, bought by 20,000 people every month, and this is no new book. "What Color is Your Parachute?" by Richard Nelson Bolles is a practical manual for job-hunters and career-changers - the sort of people that the tech world can boast of. The 2003 edition is out and the preface has `certain basic truths' such as - there are always jobs out there; there are a number of ways to look for them; if you can't find the jobs that are out there, it's because you're using the wrong method to look for them (only one job is offered and accepted for every 1,470 resumes floating around out there in the world of work); the key to job-hunting success is hope, and perseverance (because many people who are out of work fail to find work simply because they give up too soon). More picks:

Every job-hunting book should answer two main questions: "What is it I'm supposed to do, in order to get a job?" And, "But what if that doesn't work?" It's the second question that is the killer. And yet, no job-hunting plan is complete until you've got an answer to that question. That includes job-hunting on the Internet. According to one survey, 96 per cent of all online-job-hunters finally found their job in ways other than on the Internet. And employers find 92 per cent of their new employees in ways other than through the Internet.

What `does in' so many job-hunters is some unspoken mental quota in their head, which goes like this: I expect I'll be able to find a job after about 50 applications online, 25 e-mails, 15 calls in person, and three interviews. They go about their job-hunt, fill or exceed those quotas, and - finding no job - they then give up. Without a job. At least one out of every three job-hunters does. So, don't let this happen to you.

Where can you do research about jobs? The Net and the libraries. The bad news, unfortunately - for the shy - is that the most dependable and up-to-date information on jobs and careers is not found in either of these two ways. It's found by going and talking to people. Things are just moving too fast.

In general, the people who get hired are those who mix speaking and listening fifty-fifty in the interview. If you talk too much about yourself, you come across as one who would ignore the needs of the organisation; if you talk too little, they think you are trying to hide something about your background. A good answer to an employer's question sometimes only takes twenty seconds to give. Do not speak any longer than two minutes at a time, if you want to make the best impression.

Every organisation has two main preoccupations for its day-to-day work: the problems they are facing, and what solutions to those problems people are coming up with, there. Therefore, the main thing the employer is going to be trying to figure out during the hiring-interview with you, is: will you be part of the solution there, or just another part of the problem.

Don't jump head on into the job-hunt depths. Put on this parachute.

Books courtesy: Fountainhead fhbooks@satyam.net.in

Manager, inside out

SOFTWARE that is supposed to a job flawlessly should itself be flawless. Likewise `one should be able to successfully manage oneself before seriously attempting to manage others,' writes Dr Gerald Kushel in "The Inside Track to Successful Management" - a new publication from Viva Books. It has many inputs for the stressed out managers - a no uncommon specie in the information technology world. Get on track:

Instead of making life difficult, make it easy for yourself, by not trying to swim upstream. Enjoy being carried and supported by the natural flow of the universe. The calmer you get, the easier it will be for you to clarify your passionate purpose. And the calmer you are and the clearer you are about your purpose, the easier it will be to take sensible risks, to have more fun and adventure. All this adds up to your having a richer, fuller and more satisfying life.

We egotistically believe that the world just can't get along without us, but it will get along fine, long after you are gone. There will always be someone who will gladly take your place, and in fact, they may do an even better job than you did. You are not indispensable. No one is. So take time out to enjoy this relatively short life of yours and if you are fortunate enough to have some money, please don't save all of it for a rainy day. Remember, there are no pockets in a shroud.

If we didn't compare ourselves, we wouldn't be fearful and jealous. Yet such comparisons are quite normal. It might help for a moment or two to compare yourself to someone who is worse off than you, but the satisfaction from this approach generally doesn't last long. A little bit of jealousy can sometimes be useful. It could give you the impetus to get started on that project you've long had in mind.

Effective risk-taking requires that the prospective risk-taker go through four necessary steps usually, but not always, in this sequence: assess the prospects for success; imagine handling effectively the worst that could possibly happen in the event of failure; imagine completing the risk in ideal fashion; and keeping the positive fantasy in mind, let go, act and enjoy.

Effective thinkers listen according to the nature of the situations. They do not listen in the same way in all situations. When it pays to listen to the content, they do so. When it makes more sense to listen to feelings they do that, and when it's wise to tune out altogether, they do that too.

You'd be lucky if your manager has read the book.

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