Gimme Gimme Gimme by Jef Sambells

Just a few decades ago, people had low expectations and worked hard to make living. They did not know free and never expected it. Now, the opposite trend is happening, with free becoming expected online. Will the new generation, the one that expects something for nothing, work as hard to maintain the high standards of living that we created?
Good question! As a new father this is an issues I’ve already pondered and questioned. How I will raise my child to values and respect the same things I do? It’s a question I have yet to answer.
But, as a web developer I see “FREE” happening almost every day. Customer’s endlessly question paying for our services and expect that most things should be done for free, or at extremely cheap rates. The articles points to a number of factors why the “FREE expectation” has been taking hold however one thing not discussed is the perception of the internet. Many people still see the internet as a “toy”, or perhaps some “computer thing” that their eight year old niece is “really good at”. They don’t understand that anyone can use the internet and do interesting things but it takes professionals, people who’ve been educated, trained and work in the industry, to advance it and make it better. Those professional have earned and deserve the same respect that any other professional deserves and shouldn’t be compared to someone who isn’t qualified. How many times have you heard something like:
“Oh, well my son says he can code my business’s web site in a few hours so why are you going to take weeks and charge me all this money?”
Well, I could build you a small house in a few days out of scrap wood but would you really want to live in it? Probably not. I’m not a building professional, the same way some kid is not a web professional. It takes experience, effort and a lot of sweat and tears to make all those “FREE” things happen and it’s frustrating that most people fail to understand that. How would you like it if everyone expected your talents and hard work for free?.

Femi On Abe K

One of Oloja.Com partners, Abe, is more excited than us at Oloja, he has developed a structured Business profile, marketing analysis, and all those stuff that proves he really attended London Business School, and all those big schools in the US. Well done Abe, Hope you are enjoying your new role as a Big Cat somewhere in B, We are as excited as you are

Working hard

Oloja has been around, first as NigeriaDirectories.Com since March 2002, and now Oloja.Com in 2007, we are working hard now to get over 300,000 details of small and medium sized based businesses in Nigeria on the site,

Not just that but verify this business to make sure they are valid

I had a chat with major businesses in Nigeria and the West this week they had a preview of the New Oloja website coming out Next month, and they were blown away, we are going places, come with us, Start Advertising on Oloja now, seriously

Our vision is to take a home based business and make it known all over the world

How Can I Be More Creative? - Dapo

One of the best ways to increase your own CQ (Creativity Quotient), and hence be more productive in your career, is to regress a little and be more like you were as a kid. Did you know, for instance, that on psychological tests of creativity, only 5 percent of people 18 and older registered in the "creative" range? Among 17 year-olds, 10 percent scored "creative." But among 5 year olds, more than 90 percent demonstrated the creativity to suggest innovative ways of looking at situations and the ability to dream up new ideas.

The best news here is that creativity can be taught. In fact, you can boost your own creative capability just by practicing various forms of sideways thinking. Here are 10 "creativity boosters" that corporate creativity trainers teach their clients to help both individuals and work teams stretch their own imaginative powers:
Ask "what if" questions. (What if teachers got paid based on how well their students performed? What if executives got paid based on how well they understood the people who work for them? What if supervisors were elected?)
Daydream whenever you can. Just see what wild ideas you come up and jot them down on note cards. (And keep these cards in a file box of your wild ideas.)
Try your hand at cooking a meal creatively, without any recipes.
Do jigsaw and crossword puzzles.
Watch three-quarters of a movie on video, then turn off the VCR and imagine your own ending.
Interview people in your work group about some of the inventions they'd like to see happen.
Imagine changing places with someone in your office for a day -- what would you get to do differently?
Imagine that you've just won a month-long trip anywhere with the person of your dreams. But you have to choose the place in the next five minutes and leave tomorrow. Where will you go and why?
Go to or rent a foreign language film with a friend, one where neither of you knows the language nor are there subtitles. As you watch the film, share with each other what you think the main characters are probably saying, feeling and thinking, based just on their expressions and body language.
Eat a food you've never tasted for lunch or dinner today. Let the new taste sensations roll around on your tongue and try to imagine a "story" to go with them.
So what's the point of this? The point is to get you out of your accepted, expected and brain-dulling ways of experiencing the world. In order to succeed as grown-up leaders where we work, we must find ways to take ourselves back in time to a long-gone way of seeing and experiencing things afresh. Here's to being five years old again, at least once or twice a day!



By - Barbara Reinhold