Seven-year-old girls love their Nintendo DS more than any of their other possessions, according to a “favourite things” survey carried out by Gogoblin.

With apparently little interest shown in gaming from ages 4 to 6 - when boys are discovering hand held gaming devices - at age seven the Nintendo DS suddenly bursts onto the scene as their favourite toy - preferred by 26%.

From the age of seven, hand-held consoles take the top spot and go more or less unchallenged until they hit the teenage years.

By 13, girls value music and friends above everything, and their favourite things become iPods (22%), mobile phones (17%) and computers (13%).

Boy’s fave things at the age of seven are split between electronics, construction games and toys, and sports.

By the time they become teenagers, boys are into their games consoles in a major way, 40% of boys love their PS2, Xbox or their Nintendo Wii best of all.

The folks behind the survey, Gogoblin is the only site of its kind, that lets children to create lists of the specific toys and games they want for any special occasion, giving parents and friends some much needed guidance.

Credits to: Pocket-lint

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In the field of financial planning there is a universally accepted principle that it’s critical to pay yourself first, before you pay your other bills - to think of yourself as a creditor. The rationale for this financial wisdom is that if you wait to put money into savings until after everybody else is paid, there will be nothing left for you! The result is that you’ll keep postponing your savings plan until it’s too late to do anything about it. But, lo and behold, if you pay yourself first, somehow there will be just enough to pay everyone else too.

The identical principle is critical to implement into your program of spiritual practice. If you wait until all your chores, responsibilities, and everything else is done before you get started, it will never happen. Guaranteed.

I have found that scheduling a little time each day as if it were an actual appointment is the only way to ensure that you will take some time for yourself. You might become an early riser, for example, and schedule one hour that is reserved for reading, praying, reflecting, meditating, yoga, exercise, or however you want to use the time. How you choose to use the time is up to you. The important thing is that you do schedule the time and that you stick to it.

I had a client who actually hired a baby-sitter on a regular basis to ensure that she had the chance to do the things she felt she needed to do. Today, more than a year later, her efforts have paid enormous dividens. She’s happier than she ever thought possible. She told me that there was a time that she never would have imagined hiring a baby-sitter to ensure this type of quality time for herself. Now that she has done it, she can’t imagine not doing it! If you set your mind to it, you can find the time you need.

Credits to Richard Carlson PH.D

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One of the hottest management tools around is something you might  not have thought about since primary school: storytelling.

Storytelling is more than just telling interesting or funny anecdotes. It is about using the power of stories to unlock new connections and reveal tacit knowledge. Because the human mind relates to stories in a different way from the way it relates to analysis, storytelling can succeed in releasing new ideas in areas where conventional analysis or presentations might leave a group merely looking dazed.

Storytelling can also be used as a motivation tool to excite people’s hearts, not just their minds. It is thus a useful tool for times of disruptive change, when you need to create buy-in for new ideas or foster a sense of collaboration.

MinLaw’s Strategic Planning Division (SPD) officers have undergone training in using storytelling as a tool for Knowledge Management, and have already conducted a strategic retreat for the Intellectual Property Policy Division (IPPD) using the storytelling method.

Using a tale featuring Jack and the beanstalk, giants, cows, golden eggs, and even golden carrots, SPD helped IPPD officers explore their unstated assumptions and push beyond their current thinking in order to come up with strategies relating to IP.

SPD will be pleased to support any MinLaw department that wishes to use this tool to develop and tell stories so as to unleash the flood of ideas.

How storytelling can be useful for management

Action: Analysis excites the mind, but storytelling excites the heart, and is thus effective for getting buy-in.

Collaboration: Telling a story encourages other people to share their own experiences, which unleashes the ideas inherent in a group.

Knowledge management: People can use telling stories to describe problems and how they were (or were not) solved. This way an organisation can bring out tacit knowledge from its people.

Scenario planning: A story can help evoke a concrete vision of the future, inspiring listeners to consider various images of the future and help them anticipate potential
changes.

Values: Stories can illustrate the values of an organisation, thereby bringing those values to life (although leaders’ actions have to also be consistent with the stories they tell).

Credits to: Power of Storytelling

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Magnesium helps build bones, make proteins, release energy stored in muscles and regulate body temperature. Now, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers report a possible new role for magnesium: helping maintain memory function in middle age and beyond.

The adult daily nutritional requirement for magnesium, a trace mineral found in foods such as dark-green, leafy vegetables, is around 400 milligrams. But studies show that as many as half of us do not consume enough.

Associate Professor Guosong Liu and postdoctoral associate Inna Slutsky at MIT’s Picower Centre for Learning and Memory found that magnesium helps regulate a key brain receptor important for learning and memory. Their work provides evidence that a magnesium deficit may lead to decreased memory and learning ability.

According to the study, maintaining proper magnesium levels in the cerebrospinal fluid is essential for maintaining the brain’s ability to learn and remember.

The researchers have identified and are now studying several families of drugs that may restore learning and memory in animals.

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