What is Triskaidekaphobia?. Do you have triskaidekaphobia? It’s a fear of the number 13: tris is three, kai is and, deka is ten, and phobia is fear (American Heritage Dictionary). The Philippine national hero Jose Rizal didn’t have it. If you examine his valedictory poem, which I have titled ‘Adios, Patria Adorada’ based on the first three words of the poem (which others have titled lamely as ‘Mi Ultimo Adios’ or ‘My Last Farewell’), you can find ‘And’ (the Spanish ‘Y’) as the very first word in each of 13 lines of the poem of 70 lines. In fact, he begins two stanzas (10^th and 11^th) with ‘And,’ meaning it was all intentional. The grammatical rule is you don’t begin a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’ or whatever. So why did he do it? A secret message: If I have to be the one to be martyred, the one to be betrayed, so be it. It’s a haunting, message-full, well-crafted, beautiful poem, and we are lucky that those 13 Ands help make it so. The Compuser's Dictionary

Checklist Management? Gerberian paradigm shift. And now, a great paradigm shift in management. American Michael Gerber’s mega-bestselling book The E-Myth Revisited contains the most revolutionary management idea that has appeared in the field of management in the last 100 years. From the latest Internet news, the book has sold more than 2 million copies. And this is not fiction.

I’ve read the book at least 2 times, word for word. I have also tried to catch the essence of every chapter of the book, condensing each so that I can put the book's ideas on only one sheet of paper. I always do that when I like a book, condense what the author is trying to say. I know that if I do that, I will be forced to understand what Gerber is saying and where he is coming from.

So, I can say we have a new management guru; move over, Peter Drucker and all the others. For the first time, management is doable by non-management graduates, by non-geniuses, by those who never had any previous training in management. Finally, management is simplified, beautified, satisfying and not terrifying, a reward and not a punishment.

And so, everyone can now succeed in management: the creative person (non-technical, non-managerial), the technician (non-creative, non-managerial), and the entrepreneurial mind (non-technical, non-creative).

What has Gerber wrought? He doesn’t have a name for it, so anyone is free to suggest. And since I don’t want to discuss something nameless, I have decided to call it checklist management – the name says it all. As far as I understand it, there are 7 separate checklists for a successful small business:

Checklist for the Vision – What is it? Does everyone share it?

Checklist for the Objective – What is the mission that will help bring about the vision? What is everyone’s objective to accomplish that Mission?

Checklist for the Organization – How big do you want the enterprise to be? What is the organizational structure?

Checklist for the Supervision – How will the enterprise deliver on the product or service? Are all the routines in writing and being followed?

Checklist for the People - Do the people working for the enterprise have the heart for the business? Do they do what they are supposed to do everyday without fail?

Checklist for the Marketing – How will the marketing and sales people succeed without fail? What are the protocols?

Checklist for all the Systems – How are all the vision, the objective, the organization, the supervision, the people and the marketing integrated into one whole?

Those are only sample questions, but you get the idea. Gerber’s book, not aptly titled, lists down what we must do to succeed in managing a small business. Watch out – when he says ‘small,’ he means as small as $1 million or as big as $500 million company. In fact, there is no limit to the idea of ‘small’ – the limit in business is how you manage using the Gerberian paradigm.

Compuser Says. I am Compuser, a cockeyed optimist, an incurable romantic, an inveterate computer user who believes that man (embracing woman) has surrendered to the ways and wiles of computer makers and computer programmers (and their managers) – in other words, the machine has become the thinking machine and man the unthinking machine. The machine is the Confuser if we allow the men who make the machines to think for us.

Yuppies: It takes two of a kind

Yuppies: Young city or suburban residents with professional jobs and materialistic lifestyles. (American Heritage Dictionary). Yuppies: Young men (embracing women) who bespeak of the University of the Philippines (UP), who believe that Andres Bonifacio, the brave man with a sword, should be the national hero of the Philippines, not Jose Rizal, the brave man with a word. The Compuser's Dictionary

What is Art?

Art is a declaration of truth, or beauty, or goodness – or all of the above. The Compuser's Dictionary

Who is the Compuser? Compuser, from computer + user. One who does not allow the computer software (the program) to enslave the user software (the mind). A software standard does that -- it sets the rules, borders, limits. That is why there is no creativity in software standards. The Compuser’s Dictionary

What is Mathematics?

Mathematics is the science of repetition. Addition is repeated increase. Subtraction is repeated decrease. Multiplication is addition repeated on addition. Division is subtraction repeated on subtraction. The Compuser’s Dictionary

What is Word Processing? Word processing is the art & science of working with words, ideas and images using the computer. The Compuser’s Dictionary

Who is AIDA? A beautiful dream, the goddess of letters. AIDA is the art & science of campaigns, or the marketing of ideas, products, services, or people. You build Awareness first, or some knowledge. Then you build Interest, or deeper Awareness. Then you build Desire, or deeper Interest. Then you urge Action, or the fulfillment of Desire. The Compuser’s Dictionary

What is Development Communication? Development communication, DevCom, is a paradigm of marketing ideas, products, services or people in the field of science; ideally, it is communication in support of development. DevCom was originated by Professor Nora Quebral of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). The Compuser's Dictionary

What is a SONA? The SONA is the yearly State of the Nation Address by the President of the Philippines, patterned after United States practice. As I write this, it is 21 July 2005; on Monday, 25 July, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will deliver her SONA before members of Congress inside the Batasang Pambansa. She is expected to paint a clean picture of the country. Outside, protesters are expected (100,000 bodies, one leader was claiming on TV) to deliver their own SONA and paint a dirty picture of the country. That's prostituting the art of painting. The Compuser’s Dictionary

Use in a sentence: FPJ. I will be extremely delighted to have the honor to set on fire the FPJ of GMA during the SONA of 25 July 2005. The Compuser's Dictionary

What is Tyrannosaurus rex, sp. nov. homo? 2005 July 26. This is a newly discovered species (species novum), classified as human (homo), of the type of tyrant kings (or would-be kings) who disagree with each other but who agree on one thing: They want their head of state out (finished, kaput, done, history), and who think and act like they are above the law. Remember Aesop’s fables; so what’s the cautionary tale now? Aesop says, ‘Any excuse will serve a tyrant.’ This is especially applicable, though not exclusively, to the case of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whom a union of oppositionists, a cluster of conspirators, and a motley of media people for two months now have been circling for the kill. The Compuser’s Dictionary

Bush: ‘Read my lips.’ Compuser: ‘Read my blog!’ Idioms. Apparently, ‘read my lips’ was first said and became an idiom in the 1980s; it certainly was popularized by US President George HW Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign: ‘Read my lips: No new taxes.’ The idiom means, ‘Listen to me, what I’m telling you is true.’ Powerful language. Today, 2005 July 26, I a Filipino am inventing a new idiom: ‘Read my blog!’ To be sure, many others have earlier published the exact phrase ‘read my blog,’ but I am the first to propose it as an idiom of the times. And you know what, it is even more powerful than ‘read my lips’ because ‘read my blog!’ means ‘read my mind!’ Read my blog! The Compuser’s Dictionary

What is Peace? Peace is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The Compuser’s Dictionary