pardon the dust..

Unfinished Business

2011-08-26T10:27:00.000+05:30

Death is always a humbling event. Earlier in the week when I witnessed one, it was weird. I had seen him just a few weeks ago - with his usual smile and sense of humor. He was walking around and talking to us. And now here he was - sleeping. It was very weird. The face looked calm and serene. He looked as though he was going to open his eyes any minute and wake up from his sleep. As time passed, the feeling started to sink in. The body is there, but he wasn't. Who was he? Where is he now? What has happened to his intelligence, his curiosity, his anger, his laughter? where is all that? The body is still here. Where is he?

Soul - the consciousness that powers life is not very hard to understand once we see death. Or for that matter, once we start aging. Even if you don't believe in "soul", I am sure we all agree that there is a life force which powers our lives like electricity powers a gadget. The question is, how is our identity (our ego) connected to this life force? Is it the life force itself or is it something activated by the life force? Each culture has its own theory but everyone accepts one thing - that we are not the body. Body is just a medium. It is just a context in which experience occurs.

Some time after seeing the body lying there without any movement, this idea that I am not the body started hitting me hard. I looked at my own hand and felt something alien about it. I felt million cells moving within my body - each having its own mind, coming to life, growing, multiplying and dying; constantly. I have no control on this. I wanted to scream "Stop!". But they wouldn't. The buzz of activity only grew louder and louder until my inner voice was lost in it.

How do I know I am even alive? When I breathe, I am aware of the time and space in which I am breathing. I am aware of the body that is breathing. I am aware of the thought that I am breathing. Whoever I am, my life is defined by the time, space, body and thoughts in which I am breathing (or my heart is beating). Without this I am lost. I don't know how else I can describe life to myself if I didn't have this context of time, space, body and mind.

I looked around. There were people crying loud. Some shed silent tears. Who are these people? They are not their bodies. I see multiple souls (life forces) trapped inside their bodies - each of them are ticking time bombs - bundle of cells growing, multiplying, dying again and again until it all stops one day. And then there will be silence.

Until that day, I breathe, fueling my body; I think, fueling my mind; I am aware, fueling my soul. I am intensely aware that I am in touch with my body and mind but cannot experience someone else's body and mind. Why can't I live two lives at the same time? I can only imagine how it will be to be someone else. But no matter how hard I try, I can't - even for a second - be someone else; feel what they are feeling; experience their body. I am all alone in this world. I can't trade my life with any one else. I can only witness them living their lives. Even with my mother or brother or wife or children. I am utterly lonely. And so are they.

So what exactly is my relationship with them? What is love, friendship, or kinship? Just like the time and space, they too are nothing but a context. When I look at my wife and she looks at me, its just two souls sharing the same context. In her life at the same time and space, I was there. Relationship between us strengthens the context through emotions. When I see her, I create a feeling of love inside me. Only I can experience it. She can't. Inside her, there is a similar (not the same) emotion which is accessible only to her.

Are we trapped inside our bodies and minds? Yes. We can't see it because this trap defines our identity. Our ego is welded to the time, space, body, mind and relationships. If I remove this context, existence has no meaning.

So what survives death? Who are we really? Are we the soul? What happens once life force leaves the body? Does soul have its own identity/ego? Is there a purpose to our lives?

I don't know the answer. Its hard to rationalize using the devices available to us within our current context. But in my opinion, I don't think there is a purpose. What does purpose mean to the dead body in front of me? But its good to think that there is a purpose because our ego (identity) feels better that way. A better question is, what happens to the ego after death?. I think ego is a construct of the context. It is bound to it. When the context ends when we die, ego dies too and our life, as we know it, continues to remain an unfinished business.

How to lose 10 customers within 1 hr

2011-03-09T10:25:00.000+05:30

Restaurants epitomize service businesses. And service businesses are high touch. You touch customers with what you offer and its personal. That's why when someone opens a new restaurant and that too in a low traffic area, you need to pay more attention to customer satisfaction. But our recent experience at a new restaurant showed that entrepreneurs can be missing the big picture pretty badly. A new restaurant, not a high traffic area, not a specialty restaurant (they serve practically any type of cuisine), a house's backyard converted into a open space (this was done reasonably well), chef doesn't know what he is talking about, many menu items are not available, some menu items do not have the ingredients mentioned (apparently it was a typo in the menu), food below average. The only thing above average was the price.

The chef comes to us asking for our feedback and we were wondering whether to sugar coat it or be honest. We decided to be honest and told him that mocktail was pretty bad (mixing coriander with basil will kill basil - and it had the makings of a wheatgrass shot), main course was pretty bad - too bland, too creamy, too overcooked etc., Anyone with half an ounce of brain would know that this was a screw up - we weren't going to come back. We may actually be dissuading 10 others to avoid this place.

What would you, as a restaurant owner, do at this point?

Its actually easy to convert this bad situation into a good one (or at least neutralize it). Offer apologies, free dinner next time? Well, the owner wasn't around at all. The chef obviously doesn't know what to do (pretty junior guy). He goes ahead and charges us even for the bread basket that we thought was on the house.

We left.

PS: It is very stressful to decide on a tip when you've have unpleasant experience. We left a tip but I thought we were under emotional blackmail. Hated the person who started this restaurant even more for this.

Gods must be crazy

2011-01-18T20:11:00.002+05:30

My accusation: Gods must be crazy

Really.

If God existed, he would not let so many wrong things happening today. To begin with, I'd be rich and rolling in some serious dough ;-) But taking a bit of macro view, there are some seriously wrong things going on everyday around us. Talk about corruption, injustice, misuse of power, money stashing and murders. There is no recession in sight for those involved in these not-exactly-good-repute fields. But are we skeptical about God or his powers? On the other contrary, we throng to temples in even bigger numbers. Its interesting to note that those who are amassing money in any color other than white or those who bump people off as a profession are turning even bigger believers of God. They are chopper landing at the most prestigious (and the richest) temples and donate loads of money and gold and announce even bigger charity as part of their cleanse-your-soul-with-money effort.

God must certainly be happy with how things are working out for him because the bullies are getting bullier, the scamsters are getting even more scammier, and the murderers are on overtime. The temple vaults with overflowing coffers put swiss bank to shame.

A decade ago I'd have thought that the idea of offering (bribing) Gods for petty things like getting good grades, or a promotion or winning lottery would be seen as suspending reality. But I am wrong. We are turning into religious zealots. Consider this - countries are at war over religious beliefs, someone is burning bible while somebody else is burning Quran. People are thronging temples to ask God to bless them on everything from wealth, love, power - nothing is trivial.

Why did we degenerate?

Just last week 100+ devotees were killed in a stampede at one of the popular temple destination in India. Why? because the temple authorities didn't give a damn about security. I don't think this will get fixed because the finger pointing game (in India) is a mastered art. The "buck stops here" doesn't work because you'd first have to find the buck. Good luck! So, 100 devotees returning fresh from the temple after witnessing one of the holiest moment died in a ridiculous stampede. This is not the first - there have been scores of such incidents in India and outside as well.

The irony is I can understand if I die on my way back from murdering someone but how can I die when I am returning just after getting a blessing? Worse, a corrupt person cuts a underhand deal, comes back in a plush european car, stashes his ill-gotten money, sleeps in a bungalow, gets into his chopper next day, goes to the temple, jumps the line, gets special treatment, donates couple of millions and goes back to his (now) well deserving lifestyle. And these 100 people who were crushed alive were walking back bare foot in the dark through a narrow mud path to go back to their modest lives.

Hinduism handles this irony quite well. Its called karma which gets accumulated like casino chips over multiple lifetimes. So, you got a raw deal in this life? guess your bad karma chips from the previous life is catching up with you. This is a clever way of explaining our mistakes away. Its not the mistake of the temple authorities, its not the mistake of the police department or even the government to ensure safety of the devotees walking back in the middle of the night with no light to guide them. Its actually the bad karma of those 100 guys and God chose to stick it up to them exactly when they are returning back from the pilgrimage.

Some sense of humor God has!

God's rebuttal: You must be out of your mind!

This is God. I guess I should take affront to the above arguments. I never asked you to do stupid things like pilgrimage or donate money or come to me to wash your sins. I never even guaranteed that your Karma is encashable. When I put you on the miserable earth I didn't commit that you'd get your fair share of luck. You don't expect fairness in a casino but that didn't stop you from gambling. You know that house always wins. That's what life is. If you want to gamble, be my guest but if you lose don't come running to me. There are morons on earth and there are good guys too but don't expect me to butt in and help you out. BTW you have been a moron many times. I didn't bump you off then. Why do you complain now?. If some corrupt idiot comes and donates money I don't have a say in it. Neither did I ask him to.

You come to me because you want to.
Because you are guilty, because you want to confess, because you want to amend, because you feel grateful, because you feel joy.

Do you see that the operating word above is "you". Its not me. I don't get anything out of it. I'd rather be left out of this scheme. But you drag me. You want me to interfere and "set things right" when things don't go right for you but you want me to stay away when they go right for you. If you are wronged, only you are wronged. Do you know how many others plead on the same day to not interfere? And BT, on the days you felt that everything is perfect, there are others who cry to me to fix it. What should I fix and what should I not?

You have no idea how complex my job is. Its thankless. You give me credit on some days and accuse me on other according to your convenience. You use me as your cause to push your own selfish agenda. I created life that's equal to everyone. Equally fair and equally unfair. You are dealt cards and you play your game as best as you can. That's it. The cards that's handed to you is not in your control but how you play your game is in your control. Don't fret on the cards. Focus on your game.

Feel free to use me. I am an equal opportunity guy. Just don't expect me to fix it all for you. You have to do it for yourself.

Peace out!

Brainy resolutions - How to keep your new year resolutions!

2011-01-12T00:21:00.000+05:30

I like new year resolutions. Its an once-a-year chance to wipe off all the baggage and start fresh. But most of us struggle to keep them. A friend said "My last year resolutions look shiny and new, I hardly used them!".

Most resolutions relate to health, wealth and family. The common theme being happiness. We yearn to be happy. Somehow being happy is a lot work (surprisingly, that's not how things were as children).

So, coming to new year resolutions, what happens to them? Why do we have problems keeping them?

There are tons of online tips to help keep them, but we are going to look at what happens to us internally that helps keep it or break it. A resolution is related to a personal habit/behavior - something you don't have today but have the desire for. Since habits form in our brain, an understanding of how we are wired helps in knowing how to create and maintain habits.

Our brain controls our physical and mental activities. Particularly important to our discussion are two brain subsystems that control our behavior.

a) Prefrontal cortex that controls cognition and discrimination and
b) Limbic system (which includes hypothalamus, amygdala and hippocampus) that controls our emotional, reflexive and memory response.

In simpler terms, the former is the rational or thinking brain and the latter the emotional or reflexive brain. The important thing to remember is they are located in separate parts of the brain. Malfunction in one may not affect the other. They act almost independently while co-ordinating with each other for complex functions.

Why do we need to know this? You do, bear with me.

There is another fact you need to know about these two parts of the brain. The emotional brain is wired to respond reflexively. Your instincts are part of this brain. Apart from controlling your heart beat, temperature and things that happen automatically without your active knowledge, this brain is the seat of pleasure & pain, emotions, and memory. It also controls an important thing required to keep your resolution - motivation (to keep your resolution) and another thing that breaks your resolution - temptation.

In contrast, the rational thinking brain controls decision making, problem solving, social behavior, judgment, control etc., When you face a dilemma between two choices, this part of the brain helps you decide the right answer. It is also the source of an important thing required to keep your resolution - willpower (to stick to your resolution)

So, when you face a dilemma that threatens a resolution like exercise (willpower) or chocolate cake (temptation), these two separate parts of the brain are internally in a tug of war. Who wins will decide whether you keep your resolution or not.

How do you know who will win this tug-of-war?

It depends..

Each of us is wired differently. if you are wired stronger emotionally, your temptations usually wins. And for the lucky few who are cognitively stronger they have the power to resist.

But an interesting scenario is what if both parts are equally balanced? who will win?

In this case it depends on your state of mind. In today's complex world (compared to neanderthals) our brain faces a lot of cognitive demand. Each waking moment, we deal with complex issues and tasks that require the use of the rational, thinking brain. So, when the issue of exercise vs. chocolate cake comes up and if your rational brain is free, then usually it wins but if it is tired or busy with some other task, your emotional brain wins.

Baba Shiv, a Stanford professor, illustrates this fact in his interesting research. In an experiment, he called two groups of students and asked the first group to remember a 2 digit number and the second group to remember a 7 digit number. when they were asked to walk down the hall, they were presented with two snack options - a chocolate cake or a fruit salad. The group with 7 digit number were twice as likely to choose the chocolate cake as students given two digit numbers. The reason is that the extra 5 digits occupied their rational brain weakening willpower and making them vulnerable to resist the temptation (stemming from the emotional brain). (read more on this study here)

The tug of war is clearly won by the emotional brain.

Before we go back to resolutions, let's recap what we have covered so far. We now know that there is a tug of war between willpower and temptation going on in two separate parts of the brain. We also know that the rational brain in more likely to be overloaded or tired given our stressful, complex lifestyle and that makes us vulnerable to temptations controlled by our emotional brain.

So the final question - is this a lost cause? is there no way to win over the emotional brain?

Yes you can.

In the above discussion, the emotional brain was unfairly projected as evil that brings us down on our knees and forsake our resolutions. This is far from the truth. Emotional brain also controls motivation. Looked from a positive sense, it is a strong force that motivates us to do superhuman feats. We conquer mountains because of the emotional brain. In fact, in these cases, our rational brain is the dampener, the skeptic and the nay-sayer.

But we don't see emotions as our strength when dealing with resolutions for 2 reasons:

1) Resolutions are new habits. They are still not part of your memory & emotional system. There is a time period when your resolution is a "learned behavior" relying heavily on the willpower of your rational (cognitive) brain. Until it becomes part of your memory, emotional brain can't give you enough motivational help.

2) Until your resolution becomes part of your memory (becoming a habit), it could be a threat because, commonly, your resolutions replace an existing (undesirable) habit which is already a part of your emotional system. Your emotional brain's initial response will be to fight. But once you crossed the hurdle and make your resolution a habit, the emotional brain will support it.

So if you hope to keep your resolution purely on your will power and rationality, you will fail. You need to counter your emotional brain's initial resistance and convert the temptation to motivation (both these forces come from the same limbic system part of your brain). Here's how you can do it.

- Your resolution must have a strong emotional hook so that emotional brain supports (and not fight) your resolution.
- This could be a positive hook like visualizing the happy end state if you stick with the resolution (a picture of yourself 10 lbs leaner, a picture of the vacation place)
- This could also be a negative emotional hook like committing yourself financially or publicly. If you commit publicly that you will run a marathon, you are likely to stick to it to avoid loss of face. If you sign-up for a class, you are likely to stick to it to avoid losing the money.
- Emotional brain also builds memory based on constant feedback - so reinforce small things you do, think or say at every step, walk through your progress frequently. Ritualize your resolution as part of your daily routine.

The above tips not only neutralizes the initial resistance of emotional brain but also creates habits faster. Once your resolution becomes a habit, the emotional brain becomes a motivator. And when the emotional brain becomes your motivator, there's no stopping you!

Here's wishing you a great year and luck on your resolutions!

How to kill bad days!

2011-01-06T12:52:00.001+05:30

It doesn't bore well to start the new year with a post on bad days. But bad days are as much a part of us as good days.

Why do bad days exist?
The fact is.. "bad days" don't exist. They exist only for us. Take any bad day and you'll find someone, somewhere having a great time that day. A day is always neutral. Its never bad or good. Its our experience and our judgment that we label them as bad or good.

Parrot Times headlines (on the day of Titanic disaster): "Titanic Sunk. No parrots lost!"

So, a bad day is pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

The question (correctly) should be: Why am I having a bad day?
Well, this shifts the focus from the day to you. Why is the day bad for you?. There are many reasons but we'll look into some reasons that turn the day against you! Bad day needs a trigger - an external stimuli that your brain doesn't like. It could be something nasty that someone said or did . It could be your own mental voice that's stressed about some unpleasant work or experience. But without this trigger, no day is bad or good. On good days, its a compliment or something enjoyable you did that triggers it.

Many times, the trigger is weak enough to fade away. Obviously, each day, you experience a bunch of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Its the intensity of one kind of experience that turns the entire day into a bad or good one. Your reaction to things happening to you and your interpretation of them as good or bad is what creates it.

Obviously, when you start thinking how bad your day has begun, you become self-conscious about everything you do. You brain goes into a super-defensive mode. You lose fluidity - the capacity to go with the flow of the day. You become conscious of everything you do. This not only makes you vulnerable to more bad experiences (actually creating them) but also adds a lot of mental stress. Now you are officially in a bad-day spiral. Every incremental experience (even good ones) start adding to the stress and it gets compounded.

Is there a way to kill bad days?
Yes there is. Since it is your self-made creation, you also have the power to kill it. Its hard, I know but if you deal with it, you can nip it. Here are 4 R's (I made them up ;-)) that you can use to get your mojo back!

Reflect
Reach out
Redeem
Rebound

You don't have to do all of them. Sometimes just reflection might get you out of that spiral and some other times you might have to try couple of them. But feel free to use what suits you best.

Reflect: If you have no one you can talk to or if you are not comfortable opening up to someone, reflecting on the bad day and how it is impacting you can help you become more objective. Just the self-awareness you create puts the brakes on the negativity that your mind generates. In psychology it is also called "counter-factual" thinking. The following example cited by Prof. Richard Wiseman explains this:

.. Imagine being chosen to represent your country in the Olympic games. You compete in the
games, do very well, and win a bronze medal. How happy do you think that would feel? Most of us
would, I suspect, be overjoyed and proud of our achievement. Now imagine turning the clock back
and competing at the same Olympic games a second time. This time you do even better and win a silver medal. How happy do you think you would feel now? Most of us think that we would feel happier after winning the silver medal than the bronze. This is not surprising. After all, the medals are a reflection of our performance, and the silver medal indicates a better performance than a bronze medal.
But research suggests that athletes who win bronze medals are actually happier than those who win silver medals. And the reason for this has to do with the way in which the athletes think about their performance. The silver medalists focus on the notion that if they had performed slightly better, then they would have perhaps won a gold medal. In contrast, the bronze medalists focus on the thought that if they had performed slightly worse, then they wouldn’t have won anything at all.

Reachout: Sometimes reflection is hard. In those cases reaching out to someone you trust and talking it out helps put things in perspective. You start to see that this may not be as bad you thought. Your friend/family can help you to expand the context and see how small this issue actually is.

Redeem: Use this strategy if you think you can go back and undo what caused the bad day. Sometimes it might be easy to go back and fix it, say sorry, ask for explanation, or make it right - whatever it takes to redeem yourself out of the situation. This not only kills the bad day but actually turns it into a good day!

It may not be possible to go back and fix it at all times, but most times it is. I am surprised how many times it is actually possible but we don't consider this as an option. We may feel shy, closed, guilty or our ego may block us from considering this. In these cases, ask yourself "what's the worst that can happen if I go back and fix it?" and the answer, surprisingly, will always be "nothing". When you can turn a bad day into a good day, why lose that opportunity?

Rebound: Finally, go do something positive, fun and put the confidence back in you. This is like pressing the "reset" button to start fresh. To get into this mindset, you have to divert your energy to something you really enjoy doing and gives you the confidence to get over your bad-day feeling. There's always a new day.

With one of more of the 4 R's above, you can effectively handle your bad days and even turn them into good days. Like bad days, good days are also a spiral. Once you are in it, the momentum creates more good experiences and you will ride the wave.

Go make every day in 2011 a good day!

Credits:
Photo: Amazingly talented budding artist Sonia
Article source: Prof. Richard Wiseman
Topic inspiration: A dear friend!

The dark underbelly of Diwali

2010-11-16T19:38:00.000+05:30

The season of lights and cheers is always the favorite in India. This is one festival where everyone has a good time.

Not to be a party pooper, but Diwali also has a dark underbelly. The whole fireworks industry in India is concentrated in a tiny town called Sivakasi in Tamilnadu. The working condition of the folks who make the fire crackers is pitiable. Child labor is rampant.

Every government wants to abolish child labor. But here is a living example of shame and we happily promote it.

The 2nd ugly fact is the number of accidents adults and kids have during Diwali. This year more than 100 kids in Bangalore either lost their eyes or were badly blinded. I expect this to run into maybe 1000s across India.

No one stops to consider the social or (long term) economic cost of this. 1000 kids - who can't do things because they lost their eyes and now have to depend on others for survival.

Whose fault is this?

You may say that they should have been careful. But this is when it gets even more ugly. Most accidents happened to children who were just passers by when a cracker or a rocket from nowhere and hit them in the face.

Some one makes a crude rocket. Someone lights it in unsafe manner and a kid loses her eyes. I can't begin to imagine how the family must be feeling.

But all this gets buried in the horrendous apathy. We are numb to it. And when the event happens to be the most popular across the country and there's a lot of commercial interest involved, the news gets buried inside and we move on.

Is there a solution? Yes. And we know it. But its not urgent for us, and nobody is screaming for it. So, its yet another happy Diwali for us.

What was my contribution? I am ashamed to say that like some of you, I too enjoyed the fireworks.

Pushing the limits

2010-10-15T13:27:00.000+05:30

It has been quite joyful to learn from my 7 yr old the past couple of days. As with autistic children, he outsmarts us in learning complex things but basic things can be quite challenging for him. Such is the case with swimming. He loves water but its been a challenge to get a trainer to teach him. So, I always accompany him in the water and hold him. He is very careful (more careful than me!) but every time he is in the water, he uses me for his support. I find it difficult to let him alone too.

The past couple of days, I tried something different. I let him on his own in the pool and watched him (obviously I am standing outside the pool ready to jump in if required).

What I learned from the experience is quite amazing.

Initially he'd cling to the pool fence all the time. After few minutes, he started to take a dip and come back up and hold the fence. He did that for some time and slowly he started to venture a bit more. He'd let go of the fence, take a dip, come back up and find himself a feet away in the water and started kicking his legs to get to the fence. As I watched, I saw him learn to swim effortlessly on his own. After 30 minutes, he started learning to control his breathing to stay more time in the water. He kept pushing his limits on his own. No one was teaching him.

What can we learn from this?

- If we enjoy doing something, we push our limits voluntarily. Its feels like fun.
- Incrementally pushing limits step by step is a great way to explore and learn quickly. Before you realize, you'd have made a giant leap!
- Being on our own and exploring at our own pace has its own joy instead of some one trying to push you all the time. I have seen trainers pushing kids when teaching them to swim. Sometimes it works out but other times kids go back terrified. And here is Tanav, kicking and paddling on his own and having great fun!

So is life.

We think that we push our limits only under pressure. But to the contrary we push our limits more when we enjoy doing something.

What do you think?

Truth

2010-10-10T14:47:00.001+05:30

Our world view is shaped by what we believe is the truth.

Obviously, by the time truth reaches our minds it goes through multiple cultural, social and experiential filters.

Most often, what we consider are self evident is distorted.

That's why diverse and rich experience helps. It adds flavors to a simple stereotype. The more you experience the more you realize that what you thought were neat pigeon holes are actually a maze.

If there are many sources for your truth, chances are that it is less distorted. It is not monochromatic.

The dangerous one is if you get your truth from only one source. Your source controls what is true. It is impossible to verify it.

There is another type that is even more dangerous. That is when "you" are the only source for your truth. It is often your "prejudice" disguised as truth. And it is hard for you to tell the difference.

Watch out for it.

Belief

2010-09-07T09:54:00.000+05:30

Belief is a powerful force and is always underestimated.

We do things because we believe in them.

You can try to convince me of anything but I act only if I believe it. I don't have to necessarily believe in you. As long as I believe in the thing that you stand for, its OK.

Unfortunately, we forget about this most basic human drive to our peril.

If you are trying to sell, you'll probably get a customer for the day. If you make me believe in what you are doing, you've got me for life.

Not just that..

I will move mountains if I believe in something. I will burn with the light within me. I will not take no for an answer for the things I believe in. I will evangelize at every opportunity. I will also create
opportunities where none might have existed.

Now, I will trade one believer to a thousand non-believing customers!

Then why do we go on tracking as though customers are just numbers?

Why do we go about toiling on things we don't believe in?

What is customer paying for?

2010-09-02T09:11:00.001+05:30

For a long time, I drank the coolaid and salivated about how cool my product should be to tempt customers to open their wallets.

When it wasn't working, I got a bit wiser and thought about what problem I am trying to solve.

Until I burnt my own fingers (and a lot of money) it wasn't apparent to me that even that is not the right way of looking at customer.

So, what is your customer actually paying for?

Most VC pitches have this mandatory slide on "what problem are you solving?" And "what is your value proposition"

This is a slippery discussion and leads entrepreneurs in the wrong direction.

Why?

Because it is all about "you" and not about the customer. By objectifying your customer, you are focused only on the "opportunity".

Doesn't it have to be about the customer?

By thinking about the problem "you" are solving or obsessing about "your" value proposition, the customer is long forgotten.

So, what exactly is the customer paying for?

Think about it.

There is this "problem"

And there is this "solution" (hopefully your product/solution)

Which of these does your customer care about?

The answer is neither!

Your customer only cares about what it means to her if the problem were to go away.

She cares about how amazing it would make her feel if the problem went away.

Unless the problem you are solving with your product makes them feel great, they are not going to buy.

What's new about this?

The problem you are solving may be real - but may not be worth it for her. The value proposition here is not important enough for them to jump on it.

Imagine what would happen if your product wasn't there? Nothing? Will life be as usual for her? Then, there is no strong value proposition.

Stop obsessing about value proposition. Your customer will tell you what the value proposition is. Focus on making your customer feel..

..good, thankful, overjoyed, relieved, safe, stressfree, happy, feel like hugging someone, feel like spreading the goodness, smart, amazing, intelligent, powerful, superman...

and the problem will become immaterial and the value will become implicit and you've got your customer for life!

The curse of the numbers

2010-08-27T17:53:00.002+05:30

As a generation, we are obsessed with numbers now. From size zero, to our bank balance, to country's GDP and to net run rates, everything is ruled by the numbers.

Is there something wrong with it? Nothing at the first glance. But obsessing over it like a 6 year old would over a pizza is not normal either. Today we are overworked, unhappy, stressed out and depressed - by own device.

Happiness is a quality and goes beyond the measure of wealth. Happy Planet Index tries to measure that. In their report in 2009, there are some interesting points on globe's happiness. Its a measure based on a mix of good lives with ecological efficiency.
Consider this state of affairs

Today we continue to plunder the earth (because we can, we have the means to do it and nobody is stopping us)
Despite all the globalization, we have severe inequality. More than half the world's population lives on $2.50 a day.
Even among the richest nations, people are living a stressful and unhappy lives.

And we still continue to chase the GDP number

Happy Planet Index, an initiative by new economic foundation is trying to change that. The index has 3 components - high life expectancy, high life satisfaction and low ecological footprint.

What comes out of the report is interesting. Most latin american and caribbean countries come out on the top followed by rich developed nations in the middle and sub-saharan countries in the bottom.

Obviously, the red areas are where the happiness index is low and green is very high and yellow and brown are in the middle.

Calling out on the ecological footprint, the top 3 heaviest footprint is Luxembourg, UAE and USA.

Luxembourg’s per capita footprint is equivalent to consuming natural resources as if we had almost five planets to rely on.

While luxembourg's per capita income which is the highest in the world could be a reason for such ostentatious ecological cost, it is also possible to live long, happy lives with a smaller ecological footprint than found in the highest-consuming nations.

.. people in the Netherlands live on average over a year longer than people in the USA,
and have similar levels of life satisfaction – and yet their per capita ecological
footprint is less than half the size

Costa Ricans also live slightly longer than Americans, and report much higher levels of
life satisfaction, and yet have a footprint which is less than a quarter the size.

The size of ecological footprint predictably is proportional to the per capita income. The higher the per capita income, the higher the ecological impact. But, the interesting thing is that there is a point of happy medium after which the law of diminishing returns come into play.

As you can see from the graph above, the happiness factor rises sharply as GDP increases up until a point near $10,000. Beyond this point, any higher GDP doesn't result in proportional happiness factor.
It is not a coincidence then that the countries with high happiness index fall in this bracket.

So, the question is - is $10,000 a year enough? I don't know the answer but it is intuitive that after some time, money loses its value - rather our consumption level goes much higher than the satisfaction level.

As though this is not enough, this recent Salon post on an interview with Thomas Geoghogen illustrates the difference between two developed nations - Germany and the US. The quality of life is better in Germany than in the US. US workers work more (9 extra 40 hr work week a year than German counterpart) and take fewer vacations. Geoghogen feels that its got more to do with Government checks. We tend to work ourselves more if we fear loss of job or advancement. We also appear to work more as well. (Ironically, according to him, Germany's slackened work culture came from America. After WWII, the charter of human rights created by Roosevelt got worked into the constitution that resulted in social democracies).

To end, the famous joke about the investment banker and the fisherman comes to mind when thinking about material wealth and happiness. A version of it is below..

An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The banker then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman replied, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, senor."

The investment banker scoffed, "I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution."

Then he added, "Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

To which the investment banker replied, "Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

How do you look at the problem?

2010-06-23T11:57:00.002+05:30

Over years, I have learned a lot of things but one of them that I consider as the most important is the way I look at the problem. I see this as a critical leadership quality.

(I am clubbing "How do you define the problem" into the word "looking at the problem" as well)

This seemingly common sensical skill of looking at the problem starts at the most immature phase of saying "A problem is a problem - there's no other way of looking at it". Its a thorn. This is the stage where we are clueless about how much the problem itself can be important.

Then it progresses to "Give me a problem and I will look for the solution". This is the stage where you are solution focused. Its a fire to be doused immediately. You want to quickly move away from the problem to action.

The next stage is the "Within each problem lies the opportunity". From this point on you start developing some semblance of respect for the problem itself. You start raking the problem for the opportunity instead of looking at it as a fire to be doused and forgotten.

And finally, we realize that the "Problem is an opportunity to understand". This is the highest level of maturity. You realize that every problem is a real life situation that needs deeper understanding. You develop perspectives and adjust your view points. Problem becomes a teacher.

In the first phase, a problem is seen as an irritant. In the second phase, you look at it as something that should be immediately "managed". In the third phase you look at it to see if it can lead you somewhere and in the last phase, problem is seen as an opportunity to develop an understanding.

I have gone through all these phases. Current management techniques focus on 2nd and 3rd stages - but hardly does anyone learn the 4th stage. It comes from experience (and facing lots of problems :-))

It is critical for us to appreciate the difference in how we look at the problem. In today's world of Google and globalization, there are million solutions that can disorient us. All of them look tempting but each comes with its own hidden issues. Solutions also shift. What works today will not work (or become obsolete) tomorrow. Chasing after solution is not the answer. It is in developing clear understanding of the problem that separates the wise from the novice and lead us to that one right solution.

PS: Can more than one stage apply to a problem? Yes, many time you have to fire-fight (2nd stage) but it needs to emanate from the understanding - otherwise we haven't learned anything from it.

Close that (news) tap!

2010-05-19T22:59:00.000+05:30

The day I stopped checking newspaper (the paper based on online) for news but logged in to the facebook, I realized that the world has changed - at least for me. I don't know if I have changed or the world around me has changed - its a bit of both - but it is an indication of what to expect, maybe, a decade from now.

About couple of years ago I used to read 3 newspapers every day, had about half dozen magazine subscriptions, 3 active email accounts, over 100 RSS feeds, over 75 bookmarked websites that I regularly check and it was stressing me out a lot. The news and information kept coming relentlessly and I was trying to dump them into my mind - wondering where I'll sort them, store them and use them. It was futile effort. I was never going to manage the deluge. Every day there's even more coming.

Then I tried something radically different (inspired by the Four Hour Work Week book).

I stopped all magazine subscriptions. I stopped all news papers (I still get Times but I only check the gossip section these days). I deleted all my RSS feeds, ditched 2 emails and consolidated to 1 email account. I notified my friends about my switch to gmail. Some of them kept sending emails to the old address and I decided its not worth dealing with them ;-). And I deleted all bookmarks.

Its been 2 years since I have been practicing this. I haven't missed the world and the world hasn't missed me. That's a relief. There's a lot less pressure on me to keep up. I still get to know the going ons. The best part is that I have been in control instead of the news controlling me.

So, how did I manage the information detox?. I realized that we live in a world diametrically opposite to our parents. During their time information was scarce and attention plenty. Today information is plenty but attention is scare. So, in those times you have to manage information access, but today you have to manage your attention. By letting anything and everything get scanned by eyeballs, I lost the control of attention.

Withdrawing from the information flow helped me actually see what I really need vs. what's getting thrown at me. And then I discovered the beauty of social networking (aka facebook).

My world interest comprises of two things: general news and news about my friends. Facebook gives me both. I have three types of friends on FB. 1) those who are active socially (they post photos, moods, what's happening with their lives), 2) those who share news & cool stuff and 3) fan pages of groups of my interest. So, I can now get news as well as keep in touch with friends. I control who I am friends with. Their interests match mine - so they curate what I get to see. If there is some important news, I get to hear from at least few of them. If there is a cool video, it gets posted. People share blog. Groups of my interest keep me updated about the happenings.

I can now open this information flow tap as much as I want or shut it to suit my bandwidth and interest.

Today I have discovered new friends and new things about old friends - and I know what's going on with them. The social aspect of FB is truly the power of future.

I haven't missed a thing that matters. Yes, this strategy won't get me past the 2nd round on GK quiz, but I was never good at it anyway ;-)

The mysterious letter

2010-05-10T17:20:00.001+05:30

It is fascinating to see how strong our intuitions fail us. One such example is the survivor bias. Our belief in certain astrologer or certain medicine is mainly because we hear so many people telling us that it works. The fact is, it might be random - but people for whom it doesn't work don't go around telling that it didn't work.

Have you seen some very affluent neighborhoods and noticed how there is not a single poor person living there? It is mainly because the price to live in that neighborhood self selects only the rich ones - those who can't afford can't don't show up there.

This interesting example is from Nassim Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness":
--------------

The mysterious letter

You get an anonymous letter on January 2 informing you that the market will go up during the month. It proves to be true, but you disregard it owing to the well-known January effect (stocks have gone up historically during January). Then you receive another one on February 1 telling you that the market will go down. Again it proves to be true. Then you get another letter on March 1 - same story. By July you are intrigued by the prescience of the anonymous person and you are asked to invest in a special offshore fund. You pour all your savings into it. Two months later, your money is gone. You go spill your tears on your neighbor's shoulder and he tells you that he remembers that he received two such mysterious letters. But the mailings stopped at the second letter. He recalls that the first one was correct in its prediction, the other incorrect.

What happened? The trick is as follows. The con operator pulls 10,000 names out of a phone book. He mails a bullish letter to one half of the sample, and a bearish one to the other half. The following month he selects the names of the persons to whom he mailed the letter whose prediction turned out to be right, that is, 5,000 names. The next month he does the same with the remaining 2,500 names, until the list narrows down to 500 people. Of these there will be 200 victims. An investment in a few thousand dollars' worth of postage stamps will turn into several millions.

-----------------

What happened here - how did those fall victim to this scam? Because of the survior bias. All the victims are from the lot for whom the predictions turned true consistently. They didn't see the other 50% for whom it was wrong. This builds a bias in their minds that gets reinforced by the 5th month - strong enough that they believe the next prediction will turn out to be right.

Our mind can be tricked easily to see a pattern that doesn't exist.

Can you live with it?

2010-04-28T19:37:00.000+05:30

I need to start with a story before I get to the point so please bear with me here.

I recently saw the movie "Flash of Genius" which is based on the life of Dr.Robert Kearns (played by Greg Kinnear). He is a professor and an inventor and his life's work is the invention of intermittent wipers we see in cars. He takes his invention to Ford which later steals it. After a lot of hue and cry, they try to settle for $250k (which by the way is a sweet deal in 1969). But he doesn't take it because Ford will not admit that it is his invention and to him that's a very big deal. He faces multiple hardships, years of wait, public scorn and even has a mental breakdown. He comes out of it only to lose his marriage and after 20 years of struggle Ford ups the deal to $30mil. He again refuses because he still wants them to admit that it is his invention. His lawyers abandon him because most of them want him to settle. He decides to represent himself, studies law and fights his own case. Finally, in 1990 (a good 21 years later) he wins the case against Ford and later in 1992 wins against Chrysler.

So, the story has a bitter-sweet ending. His win comes at a great price - an arduous 20+ years of wait, losing his marriage and living with public humiliation. Finally he gets only $10 mil with Ford and $18 mil with Chrysler. But to him - the victory is well worth it because in his own words he just can't live with out the "inventor" badge. To him, that represents everything he lives for.

That got me thinking. What would I have done in his place?. I felt that losing marriage and kids is a much bigger cost for the recognition. I'd have happily settled and moved on. For Dr.Kearns, he just can't live with it. It was not about proving it to others (or social acceptance). He couldn't reconcile to live with that distorted reality.

While the inventor badge is something I'd have compromised on, there are other things that I wouldn't have accepted. Each of us have a tolerance level beyond which if the reality is out of sync with our values or expectations, we just can't live with it. Then we will be prepared to pay any (absurdly high) price to change it. Ultimately, we live for this alignment and if it is out of sync, life becomes pointless.

You can look up on Dr.Kearns here

Nobody can stop you!

2010-04-23T00:11:00.000+05:30

Summer is stressful for parents who don’t know what to do with their screaming toddlers. It is also stressful for parents whose kids are passing out of colleges. Its career decision time! Engineering? Medical? Which college, which major? – all these options (or lack of it) is very stressful. This year I am acutely feeling this because many of my niece/nephews are in that stage.

The parents trying to help their kids make the choice are overwhelmed by different career options available today. The beaten path is still the choice de rigor because you just don’t know the opportunities or risks in alternative options. During my time the options were fewer and lot simpler. That helped in one way because I was very clear about what path is right for me. I might have been wrong about it but there was no confusion then. Today the conflict comes from the overwhelming options and the need to stick to known devils.

My thoughts about career planning are:

Don’t start the career planning when they are close to finishing K12. It puts a lot of pressure on the kids and often you end up making wrong choices. The right time is to start years earlier (at least 3 years before) and start identifying the right choice based on aptitude, inclination, and interest. That gives time to prepare well.
Bet on the upside than worry about safety net (I know its easier said than done). Though conservative options look less risky, in the long run, given the growing economy, they end up more risky than you plan for.
Teach kids how to make decisions than actually making the decisions for them. Kids today are very independent, smart and have better exposure. We are far too conditioned to make the right choice for them. However, to do this, parents have to overcome their fear of loss of control.
And finally - Nobody can stop a smart kid. More so today than before. More so tomorrow than today – talent shines through the darkest veil. So, as a parent, help your kid develop that natural shine than put a cloak on it

Even though it feels stressful, we are actually the fortunate lot. We have the luxury of having multiple choices. There are far too many without any choice. They don’t get the best of opportunities - they have to create it.

Two examples come to my mind.

First is a girl – probably 19 years. I saw her at the passport office while waiting to renew my passport. She was nervous, couldn’t understand the complex procedures and asked for my help. While waiting for our turn in the line I got talking to her. She is from Mysore, studied completely in Kannada language, and hardly speaks English. Her dad is a clerk, recently had a stroke and is hospitalized. This was her first ever visit to a big city like Bangalore and she came alone to apply for her passport because she recently got an offer from Qatar Airlines as a hostess. Soon after her school she had joined an air hostess training institute and did a 6 months course there. She picked up her English all by herself during this time. When she was interviewed for the job, one of the pre-requisite is a swimming test – and she didn’t know to swim. But desperate to get the job, she lied, jumped into the pool, and with tightly shut eyes paddled for her life and got through! I could see the brimming pride in her eyes when she narrated her story. That girl may have many more hurdles to cross but her innocent confidence is unshakeable. Life hasn’t given her any silver spoon but she isn’t going to wait for it either! She is off to Qatar to start her hard earned job.

Second is a guy – probably 24 years. He has recently joined as a head chef at a new restaurant nearby. When we visited, he came by and introduced himself. We got talking to him. He learned to cook at couple of upscale restaurants before taking up this quite ambitious role. He is from a small village in a state in India called Jharkhand (which itself if quite under developed). I was skeptical about his quality of cooking but it turned out to be a delight for us. We went back to the restaurant after few weeks and he was again there, greeting customers, recommending entrees, customizing to our taste, checking if things are OK, all the way till we left. Of course as the restaurant picks up business we don’t know if he will have time for each guest but we can see the sophistication and confidence in his demeanor. This boy from Jharkhand should have considered himself lucky to even get a day labor job but here he is – dishing out Italian, Japanese, Thai, Indian and Chinese cuisine.

Both these young adults are from less than stellar social background. Their family is barely eking out a living. They couldn’t dream of good education in a good school. But that’s not stopping them at all. They are sailing upstream but the wind in their sail is their courage and confidence.

Today, to be successful all you need is a dream and the courage to chase it.

Now, the question to the fortunate: What’s our excuse?

The soap called IPL

2010-04-12T10:19:00.000+05:30

On Saturday I went to watch IPL cricket match to see Bangalore battle Kolkata. This is my first IPL match at the stadium. My friends did warn me about the commercialization but I was (impressively) taken back by how commercial it was. Most people who came there were looking for pure fun - they cheer no matter who played. The energy was definitely electric. The crowd control was not bad so it was less stressful.

But the catch is its not cricket - its circus. You wouldn't be surprised if you saw an elephant or tiger appear out of the pavilion! I pity the players because cricket out there is just incidental. Most times I was wondering what happened at the field. My father-in-law who was there to see the match was disappointed - there was so much distraction even between balls that you could hardly see what's going on, who is playing or who is winning. Between the eye candy cheerleaders, the tiger mascots dancing and a MC cheering people with RCB shouts or doing the Mexican wave, or the glittering celebrities, it is the biggest soap stage in Bangalore. The number of brands being promoted all around the stadium is dizzying - including the irritating ever changing LCD boundary display boards, blimps, the flags, head gears, hoots, hand signs..

I am sure the players probably curse this too - but for obvious overall financial "good" that IPL is doing for them, they grin and bear it.

We had to come back home and watch the highlights to understand really what happened there ;-)

Will I go back again? - maybe not - but with a bunch of close friends, it sure beats watching it on TV.

World Autism Day - Whats it worth for you?

2010-04-02T00:45:00.001+05:30

April 2nd is world autism day.

Its about the kids who need as much help and smile and support as we can give. However, this time, I would like to take time to thank for all the help we get from everyone around us.

I am humbled by the amount of support and understanding that my friends and family have provided us. Tanav or we never feel different in social and family situations. The best part are the kids. They are so understanding and inclusive.

5 years ago, it was a difficult question we were facing. We were just then coming to terms with autism and didn't know how to tell others. Luckily we took the right decision to be open about it. However even today many parents struggle with it within the four walls on their own. This not only makes the experience worse for themselves and the child but they also miss out on great opportunity to get help from others.

Autism awareness is increasing. The past 2 years have even seen bollywood movies which helps bring it mainstream. However, much needs to be done to augment support for this. We need political awareness for the needs of autistic kids. We need schools to be able to handle them. We need social acceptance. We need adequate intervention support. There is a lot of misinformation and parents today struggle to help their kids. Therapists are in short supply. There is not much research and training centers. We need more people enter this field. We need help and support for parents to cope with it.

These are structural problems that need to be addressed at policy as well as at social levels.

And these changes won't happen with you asking for it and supporting for it. We need to go beyond awareness - to action.

How? - volunteer your help with a parent you know who needs it. Or volunteer with a group which helps the cause. Your help is worth more than you think.

Are you in the market?

2010-03-12T17:28:00.002+05:30

There are markets in India where you'd find hundreds of vegetable & grocery vendors stacking up their wares in numerous lines. Why? Because its safe. They do it because that's where customers come automatically. They also do it because they don't have to advertize or build their brand. Just show up with your goods, find a place and you are in business.

But the catch is, they don't have any chance of selling their wares at even a fraction of premium. They'd be lucky if they get the same price the neighboring stall charges.

There's another catch - when preferences shift, their products go out of fashion. Nobody wants them. Or their vegetables rot.

They don't get much of upside but bear a lot of downside.

Think about it. As an employee, your career is no different

Sometimes safe is risky.

Forming habits

2010-02-25T09:55:00.003+05:30

One thing that we all need to do regularly is to form new habits. As we grow and the world changes around us, we need to floss out some of the old habits that might have lived beyond its course and form new ones.

There are two challenges we face: shedding old habits and forming new ones. If you think you need to be in with the social networking, you need to shed your habit of checking your email once every 10 days and form a new habit of signing up with FB and maybe playing FarmVille ad nauseum (just saying ;-)).

I've had multiple false starts and my nemesis is exercise. I had a trainer to help me get into the habit but when people started commenting why I need a trainer to help me cross the road (literally - gym is on the other side of the road from my house), I thought maybe I am overdoing it and stopped him. Within 2 weeks I stopped exercising.

I started him again this month. Its been mixed results so far - I've skipped couple of sessions but I now know what works and what I need to do. I also have lower expectations from my self (less pressure). I just want to form a habit - not excel in exercise.

Based on my experience, here are some key learnings

Don't focus on performance: When forming a habit, its better not to focus on performance. It puts unnecessary pressure that will demotivate you.
Show up: Showing up is the biggest challenge; so plan on just showing up. I exercised everytime I put it on my calendar and reminded myself the day before. I also talked about it. This mental preparation was key to show up. And once I show up, I do it.
Talk about your stress / nervousness - with a friend or your spouse. Everytime I talked about my inertia and how I hate jogging, it was easy for me to face it. Its ironic, just talking about your fears reduces it.
Get help. I don't think I'd be successful without the trainer. The obvious value of a trainer is in learning how to do it. But the bigger value for me is that he forces commitment out of me. Many times I forced myself to wake up only because he'd be waiting in the gym.
Build a ritual: Your body and mind responds well to rhythms. Build a format. Don't try to form your habit at random times / places. Once you form a habit and it gets internalized, then you can play around with the format.
Delegate the hard part: If I have to think about what to do when I go gym - how many push-ups, how long should I run etc., I'll never go there. The fact that I have to plan it myself makes it all the more difficult. I have delegated it to my trainer. My job is to just show up and do what he tells me to do. This makes it very simple for me. The more things that I have to decide, the harder forming habit will be.

I am sure once the habit is formed, I can relax the above rules. I can stop with the ritual and do it free style, I can start thinking about my exercise goals and decide what type of exercises I should take up and I can also set performance target. Right now, I just want to make this a habit!

Share your experiences. What worked for you and what didn't?

The buzz against FB

2010-02-17T23:16:00.000+05:30

Google unveiled its answer to FB.

To begin with, Google Buzz was too eager to connect me with my Gmail contacts and before I realized people were following me and I was following people. They certainly took some liberty here with their "don't be evil" mantra. Maybe just for Buzz they relaxed it to "don't be wickedly evil"

Before I was getting adjusted to Google's pesky, over-eager buzz behavior, there was another nasty suprise - they automatically linked my blog, picasa and twitter. Woah.. what just happened here?

Typically Google is good with help on new features. No such luck with Buzz - which indicates the level of Buzzing desparation. No "Buzz" settings in Gmail, No help pages. You are on your own (luckily there were links to disable Buzz).

Soon the buzz messages started pouring in. But this is confusing because the context is lacking - particularly with the messages posted via twitter. Someone posts a message and your friend replies. Because your friend is on your buzz list, you see only the reply and not the original post. This is seriously irritating.

I also saw many posts repeating multiple times. And even after clicking on "Follow back" on a friend, it keeps showing the same thing again. These are plain bugs and I am surprised why they went public with so many bugs in it. This is unlike Google. So, what gives? (and btw, the UI looks strikingly similar to the recently canned Google Notebook. Was it repurposed here?)

Desparate times need desparate measures?

Moving on to some serious thinking: How do we perceive the confluence of email and social network? Do you want them together? Do you think Gmail contacts are potential friends? The answers are not clear so far. For me, its a mixed bag. Yes, Buzz opened up few more friends who aren't active on FB. That's a plus. But there are many FB friends who I will not have on email. And there are friend of a friend etc., What happens to them? Second, social network like FB gives you a lot better context around it - groups, photos,events, wall, profile, games(even though i hate it). Just a list of streaming status messages is not enough.

Then why is Google desparate to get this out?. The answer to it may lie in another question: which is easier? for Gmail to cross over to social network or for FB to cross over to email? Google's knee jerk actions may have sufficient hints to this question.

PS: Distraction.. But here's my all time favorite Buzz

Not music to the ears?

2010-01-29T20:37:00.000+05:30

Music industry is hurting where it hurts the most.

A music trade body estimates that 95% of the digital music downloads are illegal. They are not bluffing. Global music sales is down 30% in the past 5 years but digital downloads grew by 940% in the same time. So, clearly there is a shift. From CD to digital downloads. From buying to free. Demand for music is definitely growing but the way we buy and use it is shifting.

Unfortunately the shift is not happening in the way convenient to the music industry. They just don't know how to monetize the shift. Nobody knows now. There are different theories out there but there are more debates on each of them. I like Basab's post on this (and the comments are interesting there as well)

Overall, there is an unanimous agreement about few things.

- The shift is irreversible. Its been many years since I bought a CD.
- Its hard to charge something that can be obtained free
- There are no moralistic misgivings when it comes to music downloads. Interestingly the same applies for radio, movies, books etc., The arguments here are that you are not stealing something that will deprive the next person, marginal cost is nil, you always had the habit of borrowing music from your friend which worked OK so this is something similar.

The music industry must consider radical solutions. In my opinion, reducing the cost from 0.97 --> 0.1 is not enough. It should increase the sale but that's just stems the flood.

The industry needs to abandon the current thinking about how music needs to be sold. Some artists have already done that. Some give away music free, others monetize through events, some sell directly, others stream, sell subscriptions. Its all over the map. I think there is scope for few models to work but its a matter of time and trials.

My gut feel: I don't want throw another theory but I think unlimited-music-for-fixed-fee is a model that will gather momentum. Another model that will also work is bundling it with other services - like your broadband, cable etc., The commonality in both is that music buying is invisible. People are comfortable with paying monthly subscription. People are also used to paying for services that they use today. Just don't flash a price for each song.

Product idea: Tracking your kid - all the time..

2009-12-30T13:45:00.000+05:30

Tanav is autistic and doesn't have a sense of where he is. One of his trait is he has no stranger or strange place anxiety. He is very curious so he will run away if something attracts him - like running into somebody's house or a shop. It makes it difficult for us particularly when we are outside because we have to know exactly where he is all the time. What makes it worse is that he doesn't respond well to his name because he gets engrossed in exploring things.

We typically watch him all the time - meaning he has to be in our vicinity. This is stressful for autistic parents and quite often misunderstood by others but there is no choice here.

Yesterday somehow he got out of the house (the case of too many cooks..) and was gone. Even though we live in a secured gated community and he can't definitely get out, it was still a stressful and long 10 minutes to find him. There were dozen folks scanning the area. He couldn't have gone far because it was just 15-20 seconds but where could he be? We knew that he'd be in one of two areas - park or someone's house. We know his tendency to get curious if someone's door was open.

So, couple of us scanned the parks and public areas and others scanned any open houses. We finally found him inside a house - someone had left their front door open and Tanav walked right in and happily exploring it.

While this is the story of an autistic kid, I have seen other toddlers behaving similarly. They get curious and once they get out of sight you never know what trouble they land into.

That got me thinking about a product idea. If there is an active RFID sticker that I can put on Tanav's shirt I can monitor him around. The monitor should beep if he goes out of range. I am talking about less than 100 meters range here. All I want to know is that he is in the vicinity.

I think the technology is available today and maybe there is already a product out there. If it is or if you can help put this together, let me know.

Here's a list of features I think this product should have:
- The RFID tag should be removable and reusable
- The tag should be non-invasive. Don't give me a strap. I should be able to put it on his shirt or pant pocket. I am unlikely to put it on his body like a strap or on his neck because these kids don't like it and they take it off.
- The tag should be securable so that kids don't tear it off easily. At least it should be hidden so that it is not easy for them to lose it
- Monitor should beep if the kid is going out of range
- Nice to have: RFID tag should also beep if going out of range so that it can indicate its position to the adult.
- Nice to have: monitor should have a visual display of a circular range and a dot to indicate kid's location.

What do you think?

Is that a best seller?

2009-12-10T23:12:00.000+05:30

Calvin never fails to bring a chuckle & hit us on our heads at the same time. That's why its my all time favorite (than even Dilbert).

Here's the recent one that I took the liberty of scanning from the newspaper.

Its funny when a child mimics our behavior - but how many of us pick an unknown author? How many of us go beyond the dust jacket reviews? How many of us read a book before it becomes a well known movie?

The question is - why don't we?

(Few of my friends I know are voracious readers and can put their hands up for these questions, but I don't qualify.)

Can you make new friends (after a certain age)?

2009-12-07T10:20:00.000+05:30

Is it true that after a certain age we can't make new friends?

Yes.

But this answer requires clarification. We don't lose that gene all of sudden. Sure, we can make new friends, but we don't try harder.

As a student, there are no demands on your time beyond school - so you are like that free floating ion in a petridish. But as you grow, you have to contend with spouse, kids, parents, existing friends and work pressure. The amount of social time grows more precious. Its the same situation with your friends too.

Even if you make new friends, the relationship is more complex because of too many variables in the equation. When you were a young ion floating around, your relationship with your friends only depended on you - your mood, your interests and your time. But now, you have deal with many factors, your spouse getting along with your friend's spouse, your kids being of same age. Expectations from a friend is also pretty high. There's social status, attitude, where you holiday etc., that becomes relevant. These dynamics decide whether you will meet them the second time or not.

So, how do some people make more friends all the time?

It helps if your work aligns with this. In one of my previous job, I rarely had to deal with more than 15 people in my job, So, even after years, I had the same 15 as friends. In my later job, I met & befriended dozens every week. Well, of those hundreds I met, some became family friends. So, the opportunity to meet people as part of your work is also important factor. Some of my friends move to different cities as part of their job - and obvious their friends circle is more diverse.

If your work doesn't give you such opportunity, your interests - business as well as leisure - can help you meet new friends.

Friendship is a function of number of people you meet and how they fit in with your life and interest and the time you commit to developing the relationship.

The real question is - do you need more friends? Once you are in the thick jungle of commitments, you look more for quality in friendship than numbers. And that's OK.

Attention

2009-12-04T22:19:00.000+05:30

Why is that a person sitting in front of you gets your attention more than a person on the phone? And the person on the phone gets more attention than the person whose email is waiting in your inbox?

Its hard to ignore what we see than what we hear. What we hear than what we read.

This is how we are wired. Our senses has a built-in, hard-wired priority that has evolved over time.

Is it difficult to change?. In India, somehow the advent of cell phones has managed to upset this primal sensory order.

When you are in front of a person talking, his urge to pick that ringing phone is irresistable. He'd completely ignore you to attend the call. The main reason is that incoming calls are free!. If he ignores the call, he'd have to return the call - which costs money.

Interesting - how the cellular business model can change your millenia of instincts.

Necessary Vs. Sufficient

2009-12-01T02:00:00.002+05:30

Your outcomes depend on the interplay of necessary and sufficient. Often, we know what is necessary. But we miss out the sufficiency part. Necessary is only the cover charge, its the hygiene factor, the basic minimum.

Hardwork is necessary for success but it is not sufficient. There are other factors - smartness, good education, luck and more that counts.

"Necessary" deals with ingredients and the steps of a recipe. "Sufficiency" deals with the magic hand behind the yum meal

"Necessary" deals with the formula. "Sufficiency" deals with the execution.

"Necessary" deals with the job description. "Sufficiency" deals with the passion.

"Necessary" deals with hard facts. "Sufficiency" deals with the soft touch.

Focusing on doing what is sufficient gives you insight and control on your outcome.

Talking big, thinking small

2009-11-24T22:25:00.002+05:30

Our perspective is shaped by our past experience and expectations. A good example is the talk of "International class" airports in India. Almost all metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad) have sunk in major amount of money and infrastructure in building new airports.

The vision: Become a hub for South Asia

The reality: A big joke!

I don't feel good in saying this but that's the truth. After all the years of hype, all we can show is a spanking new glass building with 10 or 15 gates!! That's it? The past couple of weeks, I have spent more time in the airports in the US. I have seen about 20 airports - small and big. No matter what the size is, any day it mocks the biggest airport in India. You can maybe fit 10 Bangalore airports within SFO. You can fit about 15 Mumbai airports in JFK. And, none of these airports claim they are the hub or anything.

So, where is the disconnect? Its in our heads. We are used to 3 gates, so our vision of a hub is 10 gates and a new building. This is where leadership matters. I wouldn't blame the builders, architects or engineers. I'd blame the planners and the politicians who talk big but think small.

The one in the middle

2009-11-07T02:53:00.004+05:30

We always feel comfortable choosing the one in the middle. This behavior is so hard wired, yet so subconscious that if someone were to point it out, you'd deny it.

In a restaurant, or when you walk in to a shop, you are tempted first by the low-end product but sooner you move up but mostly avoid the top end product. This is why companies create a menu - to give you some options so that you feel in control - but subtly they steer you towards the middle. The low-end product is typically too cheap or too limited and the higher end is too pricey. The one in the middle is made attractive & safe. This is not by chance. All companies create the low and the high end only as a flank to make you look "smarter". They want you to think that you are in control and you are making a conscious decision. This trick always works. And sometimes the trick is taken too far. See the image below of LinkedIn's pricing. What's the logic of charging 10X for "Pro" while giving less than 50% proportionate features? Psychologically the way it works is, you will look at $499, get a sticker shock, and then look at $49.95 and feel happy about it.

I have designed multiple packaging options in the past and every time I experimented with a simpler "one package - take it or leave it" plan, I have seen customers hesitating. Its like they can't make up their minds. But when I show them few dummy options next to it, somehow, they feel a lot more comfortable selecting the same option that I showed them in the first place.

Why LinkedIn priced Pro plan so far off: There is another angle to why LinkedIn might have done so. Its quite apparent that if you are going to send messages to people you don't know, you will do more than 10 a month. So, you are a captive audience for them. If you need it, they will make it expensive for you. Also, they have capped it at 50 because they don't want people getting spams. In this case there are multiple factors playing into their strategy.

Back with a bang!

2009-11-03T10:12:00.003+05:30

After a short hiatus, I am back to blogging with a literal bang. Last week Meena had a nasty car accident. Thankfully she was not hurt but the car took a big brunt of a side shear from a tractor. The story is all too familiar. The driver of the tractor was some kid who didn't even have a formal training in driving and with no license.

The accident scene then turned into a melee. From nowhere, some 50 odd people congregrated to get their share of excitement for the day. There's enough fodder for each of them - offering all sorts of advice, some beating the driver up, some others claiming they are the official negotiators in this part of the town etc. Meena called the cops. Owing to some name dropping and influence from a top official, (luckily she knew someone at a reasonably top post), response was quick. A cop was there in 20 minutes, A cop has a different standing in India. In a typical situation like this, it is quite normal for the bystanders to lynch mob the tractor driver and torch the vehicle. Luckily this wasn't the case and also it helped that a women was involved in the accident - so social finesse was de rigour.

Cop took the tractor to the police station. The sub inspector was cordial and the first thing he tried to do is to see if we will settle things unofficially. This means that the offending party and the victim negotiate with the cop mediating. Of course in this case it was an inexpensive tractor hitting an expensive car - there was no way we could see eye to eye on the amount involved. So, we went ahead with the next step - which is to file a FIR (First investigation report). This is handled by the cops in a delicate way because I think they get measured on FIRs. So, no goof-ups here. The onus on us was too much. We had to run around a lot. We took the car to the RTO (equivalent of DMV) for their assessment of the damage. That itself is an bureaucratic ordeal. Once RTO gives a report, then the FIR is made based on that.

Finally we finished the formalities by around 8pm. It was a 8 hr ordeal - and the fun just started. The third party insurance process is another big story - sigh - for another day.

By now we have become veterans in this process. Buzz us if you need info/help.

Few surprising things we encountered were:
- Cops didn't ask for any bribe (I am sure there were expectations probably but no one stalled the process or demanded money)
- Response was quicker than expected
- Cops were hard working. They were there till 8 or 9 pm.
- When we were waiting at the RTO for the damage assessment report, the Motor vehicle inspector was passing by. He stopped and enquired how we can help us. When he came to know that we were waiting to get the report, he immediately summoned the admin guy, chided for the delay and turned around and apologized to us. I thought he was now going to ask us money for his expeditious behavior but nope! - very surprising
- All cops were eager to give their cell phone numbers. They picked up our calls and answered our queries patiently.

A caveat:
- All the pleasant experiences above could be attributed to 3 things a) our economic and social profile b) there was a lady involved in the accident and c) the reference came from a ACP (asst commissioner of police). I don't know how things would have been if any of these three factors were missing.

How big are you?

2009-07-14T10:40:00.002+05:30

As though its not enough to feel dwarfed by the superstructures around us, this cosmic comparison makes you feel less than a speck of dust.

My cousin sent along this forward few days ago and it struck a chord. Just when I was thinking that my life fills the universe, here comes along - this picture of humility. (I linked the pictures from this website)

The first thing you notice above is that the Earth is of the size of a marble when compared to Jupiter. But this is within our tiny solar system (where planets revolve around the Sun). But if you expand your horizon, you'll see this...

Hmm.. Now, we are not such a giant in our little family. Earth is a speck in the solar system. Look at it this way. When you are standing on the Earth, you see Sun the size of a disk. But if you are standing on the sun, you won't even see Earth!

Hold that breath.. before you feel small, let's expand our view a bit more...

The above picture will put us in place. The might Sun who we serve as a tiny speck is about half a marble in front of Arcturus. Arcturus is 36 light years from us. That means that the light that left its surface when I was born is reaching me today. Fascinating just to think about it.

Well, I feel quite tiny by now, but this is not the end of the blow to our ego. See below..

Now you can see that Arcturus itself is the size of a marble when compared to Antares. Sun is a speck. We are speck of a speck!! Antares, if you want to know, is 600 light years away - but still in the milky way galaxy - the galaxy we live in. If you go out tonight and see Antares, the light you see left its surface 1409. Columbus hasn't discovered America yet. He wasn't even born then. This was also few years after Timur sacked Delhi Sultanate.

This begs a question: How does it matter how large or small we are? How does it help us?. The answer is - it doesn't matter. When we are full with our own ego, we are the largest in the world and our problems are the biggest. So, go fight them!

You can see the above size comparison in a video:

A lesson my 3 yr. old taught me today

2009-06-24T19:01:00.002+05:30

I was driving kids to school today. My 3 yr old started doing some funny stuff with her head and it was messing up her hair. I kept telling her repeatedly not to move her head or put it on the seat or do anything funny. But she completely ignored me and kept doing it, giggling and laughing. After chiding her a few times I realized that she was having so much fun doing whatever she was doing and doesn't care how good or bad her hair looks. She has her priorities clear! Focus on fun - everything else is immaterial.

Point taken!

Every dad has his day!

2009-06-21T09:40:00.004+05:30

And today is the day world over!.

Its great to be a dad of two wonderful kids. They make me look very special and young!

My kids made a nice poster for me (and I can see mom's hand in that very grown-up handwriting!. However you also see my daughter's scribbles and my son writing his name himself). Will upload the pic some time.

Beyond that, we had a lazy day. And, finally Meena got her iPhone after a long debate which spanned opinions on facebook, calling friends, comparing phones etc., for almost a month. Too much fuss on this phone thing. She is finally happy with it. I am surprised to see Meena take on this tech toy with a lot of enthusiasm because she typically avoids all gadgets. Ironically, I am the one avoiding getting tempted here!

9 months ago, my friend Rafi shared an interesting manifesto called "Realizing your perfect days". It had a concept of "your perfect average days". This is, your day, which is perfect by your definition but also average that you could do it every day without getting tired. This manifesto asked a simple question:

If there were no limitations or consequences, what would your perfect average day be like?

I thought about it a lot but still had difficulty coming up with my answer. I couldn't get rid of "limitations or consequences". Everything I did was driven by some limitations or consequences. But the question never left me. After so many months, yesterday the answer revealed itself. That was an aha moment for me. I still need to refine it as I go, but I am finally grasping it.

So, in all, this was a perfect average father's day for me :-)

To all dads of the world - enjoy! it comes only once a year ;-)

Tara's Pictures

2009-06-07T16:08:00.002+05:30

My 3 yr old drew these pictures.. Based on what she explained, both are scenes from a park. In the first one on the left hand side, the funny looking character is her brother. The orange color blob is a whale from the pond.

Nothing is free!

2009-06-01T16:11:00.003+05:30

One of the banes of today's world is that seemingly many things are available for free.

- Free email
- Free water
- Free movies
- Free advice
- Free coupons
- Free rides
- Free credit cards
- Free food
.... and the list goes on.

While it is easy to miss the fine print here, we need to realize that nothing is really free. You pay for them by your time, your attention, your referral, your endorsement, your effort, your reputation, your information, your usage, your own money (by paying more for something else).

There is something of value going in return. It may not be cash - but it ends up in cash down the line for someone else. But as long as your perceived value of what you are deriving is higher than the resource you are paying with, its a good deal. So, when someone pops up the freebie, ask yourself - how are you paying for it?

God only knows!

2009-05-27T10:09:00.002+05:30

The Hindu Gods baffle me. They are as vulnerable as Greek Gods with their human like frailties such as anger, lust and greed. But somehow, since they are Gods from the very beginning, their vulnerabilities are seen as a divine play. In Tamil, there is a formal word for it too - "Thiruvilayaadal" (literally - God's play). Many things about them are anachronistic and illegal by today's standards. Consider a few:

- Many Gods are warrior class and carry dangerous weapons in their coat of arms - with tridents, mace, arrows, axe, swords, knives, saws and many more. You can't get more gory than this. You can say that most of them were also part of grand wars and have used what in today's term is known as "weapons of mass destruction"

- Many of them are polygamists & had illicit affairs

- Many are hedonists with prominent show of wealth & flashy adornments (I am yet to see more than couple of Gods who are poor)
- Most use wild animals (to the dismay of animal lovers) as their vehicle

This is just to cite a few examples.

Still we worship them as Gods. We don't see the irony here. Our Gods don't serve as good contemporary role models. One of the richest and important in Hindu trinity - the Lord Venkateshwara is proudly worshiped with both his wives by his side. Try to follow that in real life and you'll be in prison. The Goddess Kali is always seen with fiery eyes and blood dripping tongue and her trident piercing a demon. That's certainly PG 13 material for you!. Another God, Lord Krishna is such a flirt and his erotic adventures are worshiped as such - and women lib has no issues with that male chauvinistic picture.

In practical defense of this, historians can cite that each of them were legal centuries ago. Contemporary faithfuls suggest that we should not look at these literally - but more symbolically. For example, the weapons can connote victory of good over evil and Kali's anger is toward greed and vice and Krishna's flirtations are eternal love etc.,

But images do serve a purpose. I can symbolize anything I see from any perspective. But still I can't show violence and expect people not get sensitive about it. As we move forward in times, shouldn't we contemporize the symbols as well?. If so, why are our Gods stuck in ancient times?

Another defense in favor of Hindu Gods is faith. You worship God out of faith. Not out of reason. Fair enough. But if we are cognizant of the faith behind the symbols, we should be smart enough to realize that they are just symbols. Then why do we act as though the Gods themselves exist? Why do we attached so much importance to those anachronistic symbols that we are willing to kill each other for it.

Some where down the line, faith and the rational mind has degenerated into blind superstition which puts emphasis on the rituals and discarded the real meaning behind the whole thing. It is also deeply rooted in our identity and we are unable to shed it from our subconscious.

The worst part is something else. Forget about these ancient Gods that we have inherited from centuries before, Hinduism smarts itself on the fact that it is very open and has remained contemporary by adapting to times. Well, that may be and there are many casualties to prove that. Real people have been elevated to Hindu God status to keep it more contemporary - case in point being Shirdi Sai Baba and Buddha. They are real people who lived in this land. They both set examples of virtue over faith and good action over blind belief. They themselves didn't worship the traditional Hindu pantheon. And both of them had a huge following. Hinduism promptly responded (to this threat) by admitting them into its pantheon as Gods (posthumously of course) and made a mockery out of their life long ideals by subjecting them with the traditional rituals they themselves scorned during their lives. Today, if you go to Shirdi, it is yet another temple with rituals and people spending time and money and falling over each other to see a statue of that noble soul who strived to serve the poor and down trodden.

If someone said that Hinduism has lost the woods for the trees, my response as a proud Hindu is that we never saw beyond the trees in the first place.

This is obvioulsy a very sensitive topic. My mom herself will not approve of my approbation of her favorite Gods here. Many might condemn my stance by citing examples of religion promoting charity and peace. My view is that Hinduism has done mighty little by way of charity. I have more respect for other religions like Islam and Christianity in this regard.

Of course there are a lot of good and welcome initiatives sponsored by Hinduism - few examples are the work done by Shankara foundation, Puttaparthi Sai Baba and many others who promote social causes. But I still think it is very little. The day our richest institution is a charity and not a temple, that's the day I'd admit that Hinduism has made itself relevant. The day I see people thronging to donate their money to help the needy and equate it to serving God, that's the day I'd think Hinduism has proved useful. The day I see people defending the "ideals" and not the "idols", that's the day I'd think Hinduism has matured.

When will that day come? - God only knows!

(Image credits: Images sourced from multiple websites on the Internet. It is credited to those individuals)

Big shoes

2009-05-27T08:35:00.001+05:30

Today morning I asked my 3 yr. old what will she do when she grows up. Pat came the reply "I will wear big Dora shoes".

Can't beat it. Kids have very clear priorities ;-)

Telling Time

2009-05-21T11:37:00.002+05:30

Like many, time management is a challenge I contend with all the time. The book "80/20 Principle" strongly advocates that time is plenty. Its the use of it that makes it challenging. So, the onus is on me to manage it. If I manage well, then there is plenty to go around. but that's not the point of this post.

The exact point is how I used to cheat myself by setting my watch 10 minute early. I thought that it would help me because when I see 10am its only 9.50am. Smart isn't it?

And it turned out, while the watch was crossing me, I was double crossing it by deciding to reach 10 minutes late to meetings. So, instead of going by 10am on my watch, I end up mentally factoring the buffer and reached at 10.10 am.

The strategy would have worked only if I didn't know that my watch was set 10 minutes ahead. What more, given that there are many watches & clocks around me, I now have to contend knowing which of these show the correct time and which are set faster. So, every time I look at it, I now have to do this mental math. This was getting too stressful so I moved all of them to the correct time.

Now, I have to deal with only one correct time and learn how I can manage it.

Thank you for the speeding ticket!

2009-05-04T12:49:00.002+05:30

I was never happy to get a speeding ticket. But on Saturday I thanked the cops for giving me a ticket.

In the US you are worried about the violation points and its immediate impact on the insurance premiums. But in India, you are primarily worried about the cop harassment, complicated legal process which eventually results in bribery. No one feels good about giving a bribe but when a traffic cop flags you down, he is up to to finding some stupid fault and extracting money from you. Many times, the options available to you are 1) an obviously complicated process which involves you surrendering your license, chasing the cop multiple times to pay fine -or- 2) pay cash to the cop for a lesser amount and you can wish the ticket away. The answer typically is of course the latter. No one - other than the most stupid masochist would go for the first. But I end up feeling used whenever that happens. So, sometime back I opted for the first option and paid a hefty price in terms of my time. The actual fine amount was trivial but they made me run around maybe just to teach me a lesson (that I should have chosen the 2nd option!).

So, given this situation, it was a pleasant surprise on Saturday when I was stopped on the way to the new airport. But this time there was no negotiation. They asked for my license and was told that I was driving 18 KM/hr over the posted limit. I argued - and they showed me a impressive looking radar at the back of the cop van attached to a laptop and a serious looking cop showing me pictures of my car, my speed etc., Woah!

Then comes the next part - they told me that the fine was Rs.300. No negotiations. I didn't utter a word and paid up. There was a female cop with a blackberry who entered my license number, name and punched a button and pop came out a printed receipt which she gave me with a smile. I was stunned!

All of this worked wirelessly!

What if I didn't have the money to pay the fine?. No problem they said, "you can walk into any of the "Bangalore One" (Citizenship services center) and pay the fine".

For the first time, I stopped and thanked them for the ticket. Next time, I'll be watching my speed ;-)

You may call me an optimist but I see a gradual but sure shift where technology and streamlined processes are eliminating corruption.

Well, back at home I googled for some info and found this interesting detail on the Bangalore Traffic Police website about the Enforcement Automation

Here is the vehicle they call as "Interceptor" which has the speed radar & laptop gizmo for taking pictures and tracking violations

Here is the blackberry & the wireless printer for issuing tickets

Ode to the King of Fruits - Mangoes!

2009-05-01T10:00:00.007+05:30

This post is exclusively aimed at taunting all my friends outside India ;-)

This is the royal season! The season when you can relish on king of all fruits - Mangoes!
One of the things you enjoy in India is the seasonal fruits. Apr-May-Jun is the hottest as well as sumptuous when it comes to the choice of fruits - plenty of mangoes, watermelons, tender coconut water, palmyra fruits. And the other best part of India is that you get all these by the road side. Once you enjoy having them on a hot day by the shade of a tree, you will never go back to a shop!

There is no better way to describe this in words. Here is a visual treat! (Disclaimer: none of these are my pictures - I picked it up from the internet - many sources - so credit is theirs.)

Mangoes:
There are over 500 varieties of mangoes in India - they are regional varieties. The ones in Bangalore that we enjoy are - Raspuri, Mallika, Imam Pasand, Badami, Alfonso and more. You find the juiciest on the roadside - with vendors pitching small tents with piles of sweet smelling ripe mangoes.

Mangos are almost considered religious in India. Their leaves are stringed together as a garland hung on the house entrance (a la mistletoe?). Their raw fruit is used as the famed spicy pickle and the ripe fruit is something to die for.

Here's a good blog post on mango varities

Tender Coconuts:

Next in line with the mangoes, you will find this every few hundred feet on every road. I prefer them any day to a chilled coke and they are healthy too.

Palm fruit:
In Tamil they are known as "Nongu". Its water is sweet and its meat is tender and soft.

Here's an article on Palm fruit

My Experience Being In A Movie (Part III)

2009-04-27T19:38:00.012+05:30

As promised in my previous post, the final part of the story is here.

The story before is here as a refresher : Part I, Part II

Story so far: On our way to a movie, we got rear ended by another car. The complex & painful negotiations of blame between drivers ensued which left cops utterly baffled how to resolve the situation. Both I and the other driver were unrelenting and wanted to file a complaint. After a series of protracted discussions with other cops we were escorted to the police station - another drama awaits..

11.30PM:
Since it was late in the night, we reached the police station in 10 minutes. The cops were surprisingly courteous and offered us a seat. In India, when cops start behaving civil and courteous, you have to watch your back. You never know what lies beneath. So, I was wary if it was a trap. The police station was bare bones with couple of cabins and few tables with a dusty computer in a corner. There was another (senior) cop there waiting for us. The junior who escorted us was relieved to hand us over. The senior demanded that we relate the events of the night again and once again my counterpart was much too eager. We were told that we need to give a written complaint but they could not find a pen and paper. Both of them went out in search of them but when they didn't come back for 10 minutes, I went out to see what's going on there. Outside the police station I saw both the cops in intense discussion. One of them referred to "Madam" and the other said it is too late. I asked if I can submit my complaint and leave - and they had a puzzled look. They again asked us to wait inside.

11.45PM:
The only thing we could do inside the police station was to stare at each other. My counterpart was as cold as I was. I started to doubt if this was a good idea in the first place. Meena was surprisingly holding up well. Finally, the paper came but again there was a ruffle for a pen.
The senior cop came back and asked again if this is what we want to do. "Yes!", we exclaimed with a mildly irritable tone. The fatigue is catching up. "If that is the case, both of you have to leave your cars here for the night because we can't register the case without a RTO official inspecting them" he said. I thought he was trying to pull a fast one to discourage us from registering the complaint. I wanted to call his bluff, so I said, "If that is the rule, so be it!". I was secretly hoping that's not the case. I quickly excused myself and called our dealer (who was helping us earlier) and he confirmed that this in fact is the procedure. This was a setback. I didn't want to leave my car there. First, how will I get back home in the middle of the night? Second, when will I get the car back again? This whole thing is protracting without any end. I began to think if I should go back and withdraw my complaint and let it go.

12.00 AM
I went back having decided that I should drop this experiment. I saw that the senior police guy was sitting smug but the look on his face was that of doubt. I somehow felt that I could go couple of more steps forward before deciding to call it off. So, instead of quitting I said "OK - why don't you tell me how to write a complaint. I want to get it over with it as quickly as I can". He then told me how I should write a complaint and I wrote it in my own words pretty much describing the whole incident as the other driver's fault. I gave the sheet back to the cop who looked it up and exclaimed "Don't you know that you should write the date and place on the top right corner?" I had it down on the top left corner. I couldn't believe that he would pick me up on such a trivial matter of writing etiquette. But I was getting smarter. Never engage them on frivolities. "OK, If that is what you want, I don't mind tearing this one up and writing the way you think it should be" I said. He stopped and looked at me. I guess he must have realized that it would mean more work for him to find another paper - so he said "Fine.. Fine.. this will do. I will let it go this time". "Can we get on with the complaint then" I quipped.

He took some time to read the complaint. I thought he had some difficulty reading English. All the while, our conversation with the cops was in the local language Kannada, with a splattering of Telugu. It is very important that we use very little English in these situations. Culturally, things go well when you speak the local language or use some other Indian language. English can be considered haughtiness. If you must use English you have to then compensate with the profuse use of -words like "sir" at the end of every sentence, show of respect using body language and so on but its better if you have the advantage of using the local language. So, all the while, I interacted with the cops only in the local language and I also saw them taking notes only in Kannada. So, it wasn't a surprise that this cop took some time to read my complaint written in English. I was feeling a tad superior as he was pondering heavily over the English.

He looked up after 10 min. and said "What you have written isn't fair". I felt sheepish because I knew what he was talking about. My language was deliberately aggressive with the words like "I'd like to charge the offender... " etc., I knew it but didn't expect he'd catch it. Still, I didn't want to give up - "What happened? What's unfair" I remarked. "You can't use words like offender when you know very well that he hasn't done it intentionally and more so he is willing to admit that he did it by accident" he lectured. I was taken aback by the smartness of this cop. I was least expecting him to catch me on this. I was happy to admit it and asked him what he thinks should be the correct phrase. He asked me to remove the words and put it in a neutral language and I did it.

12.30PM
While this was going on, the other driver was getting calls on his phone - maybe his influential friends are wondering why it is taking a long time to squash my case. He stood up and again asked if the cop can speak to his "friend" on the phone. The cop squarely refused to entertain him. He then started arguing again - maybe egged by his friend - that it wasn't his fault to begin with. He started making a case that it is actually the fault of the car that hit him - in turn starting a chain of accidents. So, we should all file a complaint against that hit-and-run driver. The cop looked up at him and said - "The rule is that you are supposed to maintain enough distance in front of you. While I admit that it is quite challenging to do that in Bangalore, it is still your fault that you rear ended this gentleman. So, I can't do anything about it". I was again surprised at the prevalence of logic. The cop then looked at me and said "While you are right in complaining against this person, I request you to consider writing about the original hit-and-run driver. This person here is a good man and you should consider that". In India, law has morality attached with it. What is right is twisted to include what is morally right. But I pushed back "I could have entertained that idea if only I saw the hit-and-run driver. I didn't even see any other car hitting him - so how can I base my complaint on heresy". To this, the other driver remarked angrily "Don't you trust me? I can show you the damage on my car". I replied "Its not a matter of trusting you. I didn't see the other car, so I am going to stick to my facts. You are free to lodge a complaint against the hit-and-run driver yourself. All I am saying is that you can't force me to acknowledge that. As far as the damage on your car goes, I don't know when it happened". The cop intervened at this time and said that this has been debated enough. He looked at my corrected statement and put it in the drawer and said that I can go.

12.45AM
I was stunned. I gave a hand written statement and I am asked to leave without any acknowledgment. I asked for it and the cop said that he can't give that since the person who operates the (dusty) computer will be available only in the morning and only that person can register it in the system. I demanded that I need something to show that I was there and filed a complaint. What if they deny my existence in the morning? The cop replied that it won't happen. That's it! I have to hang on to his word?. The junior cop pulled me aside and said "You should let it go now and trust us. If you push it hard now, we will be forced to keep your car until all the formalities are over. We are doing this only to reduce inconvenience for you". While that is true, I know that they are not willing to acknowledge only because if they sign on the paper, then it becomes their case - so they may have to go to court, stand as witness, more paperwork, get questioned on following standard procedures - all leading to more work. They are just avoiding that.

At this time I knew I hit a wall. I am not going to make it any better for me. So I relented. I took a carbon copy of the complaint with me, shook hands with them and left. They asked me to come back in the morning for the acknowledgment.

Day + 1: 10.30am:
I was pondering on the previous day's incident. It felt surreal. But I still didn't have closure. So, even at the cost of feeling foolish, we went back to the police station in the morning. It was busy this time with a lot of people mulling around. Yesterday's empty cabin seemed to be the center of activity. I heard a loud and commanding lady's voice booming from the cabin. I peeked in to see a smart lady who was commanding everyone around. We learned that she was Kavita, Inspector of the station. From her voice and demeanor we could make out that she was a no-nonsense person.

The cops from the night weren't there but the original senior cop who turned up at the accident scene was there. His name is Suresh and he is the Sub Inspector. We met him in his cabin. I was again surprised to see that my complaint was there on the table. He remembered us from yesterday and so did everybody else at the station. We had a nickname "Command hospital case" - in reference to the location of the accident. Suresh, the SI, was courteous, offered us a seat and enquired about our visit. We told him that we are there for the acknowledgement so that we can get on with the insurance claim. He studied the complaint and said that since this was a complicated situation (what complication???) they need to discuss it with the Inspector (Kavita). I wasn't looking forward to more protracted subtle pressures but we didn't have a choice so we walked with him to Kavita's cabin. She was in the middle of a conversation where she was verbally assaulting someone for not doing their job. It is going to be tough if she takes such a stance on our case. The moment its over, she looked at us and then at SI Suresh and enquired why we were there. Suresh explained the "Command hospital case". She asked few questions about the case and asked who hit us. Suresh responded that the other driver was a doctor. There is another pecking order in India. There are certain professions in India, for example a doctor, which commands leniency. Somehow, whatever a doctor does is seen in a positive light. I was sitting there wondering that Kavita didn't ask the profession of the other driver. She only asked who he was. But somehow, he is branded as "the doctor". Kavita then asked what the doctor claimed. Suresh mentioned about the doctor's stand on this. Kavita then spat few unparliamentary words and said that it irritates her when people don't know that they should maintain safe distance ahead of them. Bingo! I knew things were going to go smooth once we establish that. I unconsciously leaned back in my chair. She appeared to be curt with Suresh and told him her interpretation of the whole thing and looked back at us and within an instant her voice mellowed down. She was very courteous with us and told us that everything will be taken care of. She also mentioned that we can approach her in case of any difficulty.

From there on, things were very smooth. We got our acknowledgment with a case number. Suresh was swift with the paperwork and we were out of the door in 15 minutes.

There ends the story. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. Some positive things were -
1. No bribe was ever asked from us.
2. We were treated courteously
3. They resisted any outside interference

Some negative things we experienced were:
1. The junior cops were clueless about the paperwork and procedure. The senior ones were good.
2. They were avoiding work not because they don't like to work. They just don't want to get into complications. Why should a simple accident be so complicated? I think if the government can streamline the process, cops won't avoid work

Epilogue: Day +12
In the days following this experience we recounted it with friends and analyzed them multiple times. We were impressed with the way Kavita was confidently in charge of the obviously male-dominated police force. One day while I was driving to work listening to the local radio station Radio Indigo, I heard them announce the contest for "Indigo Woman Of The Year" and mention that one of the nominees was Kavita. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that. What a coincidence!. I thought she definitely deserved it. Others were deserving too but personally I'd vote for her. Few days later she did an interview and I was impressed by her simple background, why she joined police force, about her family of two kids and a hockey player husband.

The whole experience was only made sweeter for us a few days later when she won the "Indigo Woman Of The Year" award. Somehow the whole thing looked like destiny to me. A series of unrelated and unorchestrated events ending this way. We called her and wished her. She obviously didn't remember us from the other day but she was again courteous.

<-- End-->

My Experience Being In A Movie (Part II)

2009-04-23T18:32:00.010+05:30

I am totally lazy. I get that a lot from my wife of 13 yrs. I am used to it by now. In fact sometimes I miss being told I am lazy and sometimes I can predict when it is coming. Well, the point of this is that my last post was more than 1.5 months before. Making it in two parts was a mistake - it requires commitment to complete it - which I totally lack. Second, I started getting calls and messages from well wishing friends - "when are you finishing it?", "are you ok?", "where are you?"

I thank all of you for the patience. So, without any fuss, here is the 2nd part. Next time I think of doing a series, please remind me why it is a bad idea.

The story before is here as a refresher : Part I

Part I Synopsis: It is one of the rare moments when I booked movie tickets for me and Meena. On our way, we got rear ended by another car. The complex & painful negotiations of blame attributions began. Technically I was right but the other driver made it a moral & fairness question. I called the cops and they took their time reaching the accident site. In the mean time an airport police unwittingly made me move my vehicle from the accident scene and lose my advantage. Now I stand there doubting if I will ever get cops to believe what happened.

Part II

10.30PM:
I feel like Arjuna at the battle scene - full of self-doubts. Is it even worth the fight?. Who am I fighting against? Why? etc.,
In the mean time, we wanted to know how the process works so Meena called up our car dealer to check on the paperwork requirements. The car dealer - who also happens to be a good friend - was trying to assess the damage. He started asking questions about the dent. While I was explaining it to him, he asked me if the fender is broken. Well, it looked a bit banged up, some bit of it was protruding out too. He asked again if there are any cracks. I saw some streaks - but it could also be dirt. To make sure, I started rubbing it and to my surprise it wiped off. I was more worried about the fender protruding out because the damage could be 25 grand ($500). To test if it really broke, I pushed the fender and I heard it snap - and it snapped in place. I looked up and saw a surprised look on Meena face. "What happened?" she asked me. I said "well.. I pushed it and it went right back in - and the scratches will probably wash off - they seem more like dirt". At this time we saw a cop walking towards us. And my counterpart did a repeat performance - he rushed to the cop shouting his side of the story. I looked at Meena - who now ironically looked disappointed that the car now doesn't even look like it was in an accident

10.45PM:
After a long session with my eager counterpart, the cop actually walked to me and asked for my side of the story. This is impressive. I thought he'd have "logically" decided by now that the expensive looking car should obviously be punished. But here he was - at least putting a show of being neutral. While I was repeating my story emphasizing on the technicality that the rear-ender is at fault, he wanted to see the damage. I gulped a bit and showed the car. It was pretty dark and he couldn't make out the damage. "We can't blame him", Meena exclaimed - "You pretty much fixed it in your unnecessary eagerness". It looked wierd that instead of feeling happy about minimal damage we were actually sad about it!. To recover from this delicate situation, I added that even though it looked like its fixed, there could still be internal damages. To my relief, the cop seemed to nod at this point.

While the cop was ruminating on how to extricate himself from this unnecessary interruption to his otherwise eventless shift, my counterpart came rushing back again holding his cell phone in his hand like a weapon. "What is your name, sir? and which division do you work in?" he asked the cop. The cop asked in reply "Why are you asking?". To this, my counterpart simply said "Please speak to my friend on the phone". This is a common trick that everyone plays. In India, the only way to get out of any situation is to drop names, pull favors, get someone politically powerful to intervene. So my counterpart was doing exactly that. He probably got some influential friend or relative to talk to the cop to initimidate him or at least slide things in his favor. Just as I was wondering that since I didn't have anyone to call, its game over for me, I heard the cop yell back at him and say "Why should I talk to someone else? I don't care if he is a big person. You can disconnect". This was a second surprise for me. Not only does this cop try to objectively understand what happened, he also resisted outside influence. This might actually turn out interesting..

11PM:
After hearing both sides of the story patiently and at length the cop approached me to find out if I'd let things slide and move on. Its already 1hr 15 min since this drama started - so it was tempting to let go. But the past 10 min. were very interesting and since I missed the movie anyway, I wanted to try my luck to see where this ends. Its poker time!

I said "I won't let it go because this is a new car and I don't know how bad the internal damage is". "However, I will be fair to the other driver - I will give two options a) I will get it repaired at my body shop and he pays for it or b) he gets it repaired at his body shop. But its his responsibility to fix it". The cop couldn't argue with this. Sounds very fair. He turned to the other guy but his eyes met with stern rejection. He still thinks that he is also a victim and if anything, I should go after the invisible car which rear-ended him. The cop looked back at me with pleading eyes and I said "I don't care about the guy who hit and run. As far as I am concerned, I was hit by this guy - so why should I go after someone I haven't even seen?"

The cop looked absolutely baffled. He didn't know how to react. At this time a 2nd cop - a junior one - came on the scene and tried to figure out why it was taking such a long time to resolve this situation and they got into a hurried discussion.

11.15PM:
After an intense discussion, both cops started calling others on their phones. It looked as though they were confused and didn't know what to do. After a long time they came back and told both of us that if we don't reconcile, the only option we have is to go to the police station and file a report. The cops emphasized the words "police station" in a menacing tone meant to scare us - but I was in no mood to miss this action, and so did the other guy, so we both nodded our willingness. This confused the cops even more and they made more frantic calls. Only then did I realize that of all the people there at the scene, the cops were the most clueless and scared. I guess its because they are not used to handling such stubborn drivers. Most of them would have reconciled by now or they would have been intimated by the mere aura of cops questioning them. But we were foolish to take it beyond and that called the bluff on the cops.

11.20PM:
After another phone call, the senior cop pulled a fast one on the junior. He announced that the junior cop will guide us to the police station. He also told the junior cop to sit in my counterpart's car. This surprised the junior cop because he clearly felt like it wasn't his job to handle it. Neither did he exude confidence on what he was supposed to do next. The senior cop mentioned some mumbo jumbo about some paperwork and forms to be filled up and said it was all standard procedure. The junior cop's face was neither a portrayal of "standard" nor of "procedure". But by then, the senior cop was gone on his bike. That was a smart move. I was also wondering if he asked the jr. cop to sit in the other car to ensure that they will not run away. maybe?

As I was following the other car to the police station, I remarked to Meena that in one way this incident happening in the night took away the time pressure. We have all the time in the world to find out where it ends.

It is nearing midnight. I am sure police station will be another ball game and a new chapter.

<---- To be continued in Part 3 --->

If you thought I am going to end this incident in Part 2, I am sorry to let you down. This will take another sitting to finish. There's so much left and some twists and turns...

I hope you enjoyed it so far.

But I will make it up - I promise to post Part 3 on Monday. 3 more days to go.
I'd have finished it tomorrow but its 12.45am and Meena is prodding me to get some sleep. I need to get up early tomorrow for a long weekend getaway to Coorg with family and friends. I hope you have a good weekend too!

My experience with being in a movie! (part 1)

2009-03-10T14:12:00.002+05:30

I have never been in a movie but this sure is the closest to being in one. This is a long story - so pardon me if I take some time to build this one.

2 weeks back - Friday evening 9.45pm:

Meena and I were driving on our way to a movie. The movie starts at 10 pm. I was concerned about making it on time. The car in front of me brakes hard for a stop light and I brake too and the next instant I hear a BOOM. The car behind me hits ours squarely on the fender.

And its 9.45 pm.

I know how this goes in the US, but in India the rules are complex. It depends on lot of factors - whether the accident was between a two wheeler and a car or if it was between 2 cars, or between a bigger car and a smaller one, or if everythign else being equal, whether its between a local driver and an outsider.. and the list goes on. Majority of the accidents in India are settled outside of police and insurance - its just verbal might and then ultimately someone coughs up money and they part ways. I have never seen how it works when cops and the law is called to action.

So, all this whirs in my head while I am standing in the middle of the road with another car kissing my car's rear. The driver in the other car puts up an offensive attitude - gotta expect that - and says that he too is a victim like me because he did not hit me first. Apparently it was a chain reaction. He got hit and he hit me. He has some dent to show on his rear. So, we are in a stalemate - he disagrees that its his mistake to have rear-ended me and I am stubborn that it is his mistake.

All this while the traffic is flowing around us. Everyone is rubber necking offering their 2 cents and moving on. No one complains that we are blocking the road. There were some really big buses which had diffficulty skirting around us but not a moan - not a whimper!

We go through our ritual of verbal posturing and moral high ground. We also take pictures of the scene on our cell phones from our vantage points

10.00 pm

"So, are you going to accept that its your fault" I asked the other driver. "No, infact you should be thankful that you only got rear-ended. Mine is dented on front and rear" he replied. I complained that it doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, he needs to pay for this.

Now comes the who-blinks-first point. Typically if one of us were an anti-social element (read politically connected thugs), this would have gone bloody smooth - but both of us were the meeky types.

I threaten that I will call the cops. He doesn't blink - "Go ahead. I have nothing to run away from" he retorted. I finally punched in the number 100 on my cell phone (which is like 911 in India). At this point I have absolutely no faith if the call will even go through. I have never done this before so I have no clue. I was doing it merely to see if I can scare him to settle with me.

"Hello" a lady answers on the other side. I was surprised. So, it does work! I explained my situation and she was patient. She took my co-ordinates and mentioned that someone will be there shortly. She also checked if anyone was injured. Quite impressive!

10.05 pm.

Few bike drivers stop to survey and give their advice.

I get a call back on my cell phone - this time, its a cop who wants to confirm that an accident had indeed happened, and its not a prank call. I guess its a good idea to cross-check. Who knows these days some kid might want to play a prank on them. Might be happening a lot. 5 minutes later another cop calls and checks if he is still required. Maybe this is also a best practice borne out of their experience. a) why waste time to respond to call b) always double check to see if the drivers got tired of waiting and arrive at a compromise. Well, that ain't happening here, the attitude I am getting from the other side is quite stiff.

10.15pm

After 15 minutes of waiting in the middle of the road with the accident scene intact, I get another call from a cop who says that he is at the location mentioned but he can't see us. Well, that's quite impressive sleuth job! He takes the co-ordinates again and hangs up. I don't know where he called from.

10.20pm

A police van stopped by and a cop emerged out of it. My counterpart immediately rushed to the cop to claim first mover advantage and started furiously explainingn things. I stuck around the car thinking the cop will visit the accident scene. Meena was worried about the proactive approach taken by the other driver and insisted that I do the same. Reluctantly I went to see what was going on. The cop asked me to move each of our cars to the kerb. We did it without questioning. Once we did that, he said that he is not a cop (but airport security) and asked us to wait for the cop.

Duh! I worked so hard to preserve the accident scene and I lost the edge now. It is going to be hard to prove at what angle the other car came and hit me. Infact the other car driver can now even deny that he hit me! Big mistake - I should have checked the credentials of the cop before I moved my car. Now it is too late.

10.30pm

Still waiting - By now it is clear that I am not going to watch a movie - I am already in a movie.

<--- part 2 to be contd.. --->

The "always connected" world

2009-03-03T18:18:00.002+05:30

This post isn't about the crackberry or email addiction (I am still trying to get over it!). This is about a recent incident which reminded me about the power of Internet to connect us in serendipitous ways. Recently I uploaded some photos on facebook and I got a call soon after from another friend and she asked how I knew this guy in one of the photo. Apparently we have a common friend - my former collegemate whose son studies in the same school as my other friend. But the best part is that even she doesn't know my classmate. When she was browsing through my facebook picture, her son walked up and pointed to my classmate picture and said - this is my friend's dad!

This is certainly a connected world. I always look up people on LinkedIn to know if I am professionally connected to them. Likewise, facebook has become a place where my social circle hangs out. There are constant connections, updates, photos - so much of activity happens there - that I don't even have to talk to a friend to know what they were up to. I know the books they are reading, what their mood is, where they went last weekend, whether they like a movie..

I use this social tool rather infrequently - but the power it wields is striking. I know people who use this everyday and actually communicate real time using wall messages, status updates, sending birthday messages etc.,

Today we live in a world where finding connections are not an issue. Infact there is a lot of noise where everybody is accessible. What we do with them is what is important.

Office 2003 Vs. Office 2007

2009-02-27T11:15:00.012+05:30

Powerpoint is the staple food of my work. Not a day goes by without using it. But the past few months have been very annoying because of the incompatibility between "Office 97-2003" and "Office 2007". While the vast majority still use Office 2003, the cheeky Office 2007 ppt format is incompatible with it. All my presentations saved in the native Office 2007 cannot be opened by those still in the Microsoft's dinosaur era 2003 Office (you'll get the context if you saw the Microsoft ads featuring dinosaur looking people aka 2003 users)

So, what do I do?. The world revolves around the LCD (lowest common denominator) users. So, I end up saving all my presentations in Office 2003 version. I have many presentations which are saved originally as 2007 version and then converted to 2003 for emailing out. This leads to huge version control issues (that's another topic).

While doing this, I noticed some interesting things
- Office 2007 saves files more efficiently than 2003. Consistently. About 40-80% more efficient. See image below

- Also, some of the image effects were better handled in 2007. For example: adding reflection to a image in 2007 did not increase the file size but the same thing in 2003 saw a 2.5x increase.

- 2003 file size changes were inconsistent. If I added reflection and then removed it, the size does not reduce proportionately

There are more differences - but that would get technical. But here are some interesting things I found out:

- The major change in 2007 format is that it is Open XML based and is stored by default as a compressed file - which is why you see huge efficiency. There is an easy way to find this out. If you have Office 2007, create a file and open it in WinZip and you will see a directory structure like the image below.

Not only that, you can actually see each slide in an XML format and you can open it and read it in a notepad. For example, for this demo, I have created a presentation with two slides - as is evident in this image as slide1 and slide2

Now you can click on slide2.xml and actually see its text.

- Because 2007 file format is automatically stored in a compressed format, further zipping gives only marginal benefit. For example, zipping a Office 2003 ppt gave a compression rate of 40% while Office 2007 ppt reduced it only by 8%.

- What more.. the final compressed file size between Office 2007 and Office 2003 was close. So, all along, Office 2003 and Office 2007 are quite similar once both are zipped. Although I have see this size difference vary for large size presentations (in favor of Office 2007).

Want Vs. Need

2009-02-22T13:02:00.002+05:30

It it easy to get confused between "Wants" and "Needs". I have been confusing them for a long time. Only tightened budgets and crisis help us differentiate between them. It is often surprising how many Wants get passed as Needs. No amount of relentless discrimination prepares you for the amount of things you actually don't need.

If there is one problem with "plenty" or "comfort", it is this. You always focus on wants.

Well, today we live in a time of Needs. It is not bad to cut down on things. It is not bad at all. Prepare for your needs and you will be fine.

SMB vs. Enterprise

2009-02-10T23:00:00.001+05:30

In his interview with Sramana Mitra yesterday, Jason Lemkin - EchoSign CEO made a very interesting observation about enterprise and SMB customers:

.." If you have a product that is 10 times better than anything in the marketplace, you are going to get enterprise customers. There is a person sitting in those enterprises whose job it is to interface with you. Small business do not have that person; those accounts are harder to win. SMB does not have anybody searching through the AppExchange looking for cool new ways to improve business."

This is a key insight I too learned from my experience as an entrepreneur trying to address SMB market. Even though SMBs have lot of pressing needs that look like great market opportunity, they have too much going on in their organization to make commitments. Typically there is 1 or 2 people in an SMB who make decisions and they are constantly juggling too many priorities. So, ultimately there is no one you can sell to. Compare that to enterprise customers where if your value proposition is aligned with the man with the MAN (money, authority and need), you can focus on it and close.

But bear in mind that the sales process is very different for these two customer types and if your business structure is not aligned that way, you pretty much fall into the "chasm" - neither good for SMB nor good for the enterprise!

Gone BB gone!

2009-01-27T12:43:00.002+05:30

Last weekend, I got rid of my blackberry. There was so much rejoice in the family that Meena even made it as her facebook status. I started getting congratulatory (or bravery! ;-)) messages.

I was never a blackberry person before but in the past 4 months I used it, it kind of started ruling my life. Like the Camel and the Arab story, what started as a "productivity enhancing" tool became a life pawning tool. I realized slowly that I had only two modes of consciousness - one is when I am speaking to someone and the other is when I am checking my blackberry. I wasn't listening at all. I was shouting at the world and the world was shouting at me through blackberry.

The problem I realized is that blackberry is non-discriminatory. It opens the flood gates to everyone, all the time. Distinctions of day/night, personal/official, urgent/non-urgent started blurring. Everything is a message craving attention and once you know there is a message, you pretty much end up responding.

Another problem with it is that once people know you have a blackberry, there is an implicit expectation that you see it all the time and you are available all the time.

Could I have been more disciplined? Yes. After all, what's stopping me from putting it on silent mode in the evenings or even switch it off? Nothing. Believe me, I tried. Doesn't help.

Does this mean I'll never use it again? I don't know the answer. The world certainly is moving towards a "always connected" state and once upon a time emails were optional and were considered intrusive as well. For now, I can get away without the 24x7 connectivity. I don't know for how long.. But the brief encounter with it has made me worried about my own capability to handle it :-)

Goals

2009-01-08T17:32:00.002+05:30

My new year resolution this time is simple: Set goals and strictly follow them!

These are not the life time goals. These are concrete goals that I set for the week which is based on my month & quarter and so on. I have learned that once I plan my week, pretty much everything follows that - goal setting, prioritization, what needs to be done (vs. what can be done). With this one resolution, I pretty much handle everything else.

We live in an age of distraction and micro-second attention span. We never get tired of "now" because there is too much going at any moment. If we don't take charge of it, it pretty much takes charge of us. The only way we can do what we really want is to reject a lot of what comes our way. This happens only if we plan. Otherwise I can spend 8 hours a day at work every day of the week floating around and still be tired at the end of the day with doing nothing.

Let life not just "happen". Let it be your song.. or your story.. or anything which is purely yours!

New Year Shout Out!

2009-01-02T01:26:00.002+05:30

Its the new year and as usual, people go out of their way to reach out and wish friends and family.

I like to be wished but when I start getting inundated by standard messages by email and SMS, I start to wonder - what's the point? I am grateful that the sender thought of me - in the sense that I was on their email address book or phone contact list. But apart from helping phone companies bulk up on SMS revenues, these new year messages do very little in helping people connect better.

Before sending it did they think?

- Is it meaningful to the person reading it?
- Are you personalizing it such that the receiver knows that you have thought of them?
- Is it relevant? are you going beyond just a welcome message? Are you connecting with the person?
- Would your message have better impact if you sent it couple of days before the new year or couple of days after the new year? - instead of getting lost in the crowd?
- Did you consider not sending an email/sms message at all - instead calling them few days after the new year and spending quality time on catching up rather than calling them just to wish and hang up?

Let this new year be that of meaning and thoughtfulness. Let it be that of building and strengthening relationships. It doesn't matter how often or when you reach out, but it does matter what you do when you reach out.

The best birthday gift!

2008-11-12T11:30:00.002+05:30

This has always given me grief and guilt. Meena surprises me all the time with her birthday gifts and I have never once done anything for her.

This time was no exception. Today morning I got this "huge" gift - well it weighs something like 20 pounds and its also huge because I am a "HUGE" fan of Calvin and Hobbes (see image below)Perfect Gift to wash down the midlife crisis?!

Well, I am going to be hitting the scary five lettered "f" age in few years.. well.. but actually I don't feel anything!

Looking back, interestingly I think I have grown younger in the past decade. My views, attitude, actions and even taste in things..

I had just enough time to read Bill Watterson's introduction on the book and it is very very humbling. He is a genius!

So, here's to another year filled with life!!

Opinions

2008-10-07T12:29:00.002+05:30

Its amazing that all beautiful things are told in very few simple words. I have learned thousands of tough and long words for GRE, CAT only to realize later that no beautiful things can be communicated through them :-). Anyways, I am digressing here. I came across this beautiful quote

"Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth."

- Charles A. Dana (1819 - 1897)

Yes, we do fight for our opinions. But how often do we stop to realize that they are just our opinions - nothing beyond it. It may not reflect reality. This warped sense of ego where our opinions don reality garb in our head is the root of most problems.

Opinions are personal, truth is universal. Someone attacking our opinions hurts our ego. We start taking things personally. Each of us are motivated to protect our opinions. We begin with truth but very soon forget about it. It becomes our opinions in the form of beliefs, rituals, values etc., Soon, the truth is abandoned. What we are left with is our beliefs and rituals.

In personal life as well as work, its the same story. I have never met a person (including me) who advocated truth and nothing but it. Its all opinions. Its yours versus mine. Its ours versus theirs. Its someone's. But it never stands on its own. When something doesn't stand on its own, its not truth, its just an opinion propped by that someone. Look carefully.

Agelessness

2008-09-26T10:52:00.003+05:30

I see a lot of design / architecture which look beautiful on paper and even more beautiful when they are new. But give it a few months and you'll start seeing impracticalities, problems in maintaining them as good as they once were. That's life for you. What we do in our lives & our relationships also must be measured this way. When designed, it needs to be designed to withstand time.

Which is why I am always awed by temples in India. They are huge granite rocks stacked up together. But they look as serene, majestic and grand even after 100s of years. They seem transcendental. They look like they are portals of time - to another age - but still competing & relevant standing next the new modern glass buildings.

When we do things - we don't think of this. At least I don't. I don't assign this amount of significance to what I do. I don't think my actions and thoughts are ageless - therefore when I look back at my past, many of them look pale, withered and insignificant. Yes, I have done few things in the past that I am proud of even today. They are my own majestic and grand temples.

How many such temples have you built in your life?

How do you "do"?

2008-09-20T00:49:00.004+05:30

We take one of the two approaches when it comes to doing things.

The first approach, let's call it "A" is to "Do things perfectly or don't do it at all". The second approach "B" is to "Do something, then improve". There are obvious pros and cons and we understand them so I am not going to write about them here. But what I learned from experience is that you can't be religious about picking one over the other. Its not either-or situation with these approaches. Like every thing else, both of them have applicability in different situations. The key is to know when to apply what. I have made plenty of mistakes taking the wrong approach. Here is a way to tell which is better.

--> If what you do is going have mass scale impact (even briefly), approach A is the best to adopt. That is why, for example in health care and in activities where people or large sums of money is involved are done carefully. That is why we have regulations on airplane safety, FDA, SEBI etc., Otherwise organizations, in their capitalistic eagerness, would have jumped at doing something & then figuring out :-). Also, when it comes to things like brand image, companies are extra careful.

--> If what you do has limited impact either in time, reach or effort, approach B is the right one. That is why start-ups stress on iteration over perfection. This is why you can put up a not so great website and change it 10 times a day. That is why you can make a mistake with a client, learn from it, and move on to the next.

As you can see, the subjectivity here is the nature and scale of the "impact". You may wrongly think that hurting 100 people is "limited impact". Fortunately there are controls for this which guides your behavior. The far worse and often seen situation is the one where you think that your product is so important that anything you do will be noticed - and not just that, your customers will remember it for a very long time.

Think again.

Are you ROW?

2008-08-29T00:50:00.002+05:30

With the world's official work cycle turning into 5 day work week, its time to change that again. In India, 5 day week is still not very common in traditional industries but slowly, things will move in that direction. But now, its changing with the talk of ROWE (see this article) - Results Only Work Environment where it doesn't matter when and how long you work as long as you produce results. A fixed time working environment versus flexi-time working environment.

Obviously, this work style is not suitable in many places and not relevant in others. But in the IT industry, some of these concepts are already in place. At Oracle I was measured purely on my results so much that in the past many years I haven't been very conscious of the work timings (which is an euphemism for I-work-all-the-time). I went through lot of stress at home since work encroaches your home life - remember? results only matter - so you end up working through the night, during your dinner, when you are out..and so on..

To get back my personal life, I experimented. Three good strategies are working well for me.

First, I noticed that there is a mindset change required from my side. When moving from a fixed time work week to a results oriented work week, I didn't let go of the former. I was trying to do both - fixed time as well as results based. So, obviously during the work timings I was dedicated and since I was free to take work home, I did. The solution to this was to have a blend of three life time zones - 1) strictly work time 2) flexi work-personal time and 3) strictly personal time. So, its ok if I have to run a chore during the (2) and its ok to do my presentation during dinner.

Second, technology was making a mess of my life. Because I carry my cell phone and my laptop, messages keep coming and I keep responding. It was just getting too much. I tried bringing some sanity by limiting the number of times I check my emails from every other second to once an hour and then to once 3 hrs. Of course I violated this rule many times but I got a little better after some time. Second, I stopped using my inbox as todo list. I developed some discipline to process an email immediately - either respond, forward, delete or file. If I can't respond immediately, I move it to my separate to-do list. I try hard to follow zero inbox policy. The book Bit Literacy helped me a lot to get here.

Third, I realized that in my personal life I don't use the professionalism with which I approach my work life. I always thought that personal life should not be "planned". Its about mental relief and free-wheeling. That's was a big mistake. Freewheeling philosophy works well when you have more time than things that demand your time. With ROWE, there are always more things that demand your time. So, unless you "budget" and "plan" your personal time, you are not going to do it.

I still haven't mastered these three strategies - I slip on some of them all the time but I keep coming back to them - and every time I know they are right for me.

Popcorn Anthem

2008-08-14T14:53:00.003+05:30

Indian Independence Day (Aug 15) is the most important secular celebrations of the country. Previously, my mental associations were school competitions, flag hoisting, parades, speeches, freedom related TV shows. This year I didn't see / hear any of that. I see huge hoardings of "Freedom Sale" at different malls. I see even bigger hoardings of "Salsa Nights" which promises dancing away to freedom! Another radio jingle urged passionately that at the stroke of midnight you must wake up to club scene in Goa!

So much so that my association of national anthem is now with the smell of popcorn - because a movie hall plays anthem to a standing audience right before the movie begins and I am always awkwardly standing with a bucket of hot popcorn!

Is this trend disturbing?

Actually, I think not!. What this means is that the country is moving away from the colonial mindset to looking at this day as a long weekend opportunity. We are living among a generation who are free from the past and look towards the future. This day is becoming truly liberated from being a history lesson to optimism of the future.

Yes, we should remember the past and the sacrifices, but we have to be truly free of the mind!

My own generation disconnected!

2008-08-06T19:26:00.004+05:30

I received a lot of private comments on my previous post on Generation Disconnected. Most readers could related to it.

Just last week I witnessed my own generation disconnected. I came in touch with a friend of mine - a very good childhood friend who I lost touch with over years. He wasn't in touch with most others also because he didn't have email access at his work (his workplace security is super tight). He didn't have a computer at home either. Over years, he was the only guy who didn't know their whereabouts. During our conversation I found it extremely difficult to relate to him. I couldn't understand why he doesn't use email. Even my dad checks email once a day and he doesn't have computer. Today, in urban & semi-urban India, you can't find reasonable excuse for lack of email - there's Internet centers all over the place and its highly affordable. Computers are considered borderline necessity. I haven't encountered many don't have email. You could say that email as a criteria is self-selecting : people with email are typically in touch only with people who have emails. But given his social profile he belongs to this category.

That conversation ironically reminded me of another conversation just 15 years ago with a friend who was studying computer science. He was the first one who explained what email is. At that time I couldn't understand how email could be useful and brushed it off as some geeky tool. How things change! - that too in less than a decade. From writing off people who use email to writing off people who don't use email, world has come a long way. I can already see many of my friends + lots of young ones writing me off - world is going past emails. Its now on IMs, orkut, facebook & second life!

Bangalore Blasts!

2008-07-27T10:22:00.002+05:30

Bangalore hit by bomb blasts.

Its certainly a wake-up call. It makes you stop in your tracks and re-look at things you take for granted - including your safety. When it happens in the city I live and in the neighborhood I am familiar with, it feels surreal. But this is a wake up call for the city.

We have been taking things a bit easy. Yeah I see metal detectors at most malls, cinema halls and other places, but the roads are not safe. What Bangalore requires now is civic vigilantism, be aware of surroundings and be careful. I will now demand higher security in places I visit - If I can go in without much screening, then I'll think if I should go in at all!

Government:
Government needs to take this seriously. The moment of pity is over in 10 minutes. People start to wonder if the city is worth visiting, and the doubt will cost us more than the economic toll of the blasts themselves.

City should also put in a system to monitor & check the strength of security procedures at public & private places where people gather. I personally have experienced lax screening in couple of multiplexes where we were able to easily smuggle in cigarette packs and outside food. We were slyly giggling about outsmarting them then, but today I'd reconsider what this means. Security procedures needs to be proactively checked for breaches by hacking them and using the information for training & improving the process (have you seen The Real Hustle on BBC?, something like that)

About Media:
This time, I didn't sit in front of TV or spend much time on newspapers. I realized that media sensationalizes the whole thing. They loop the same 15 second video thousand times and put some really serious looking and pretending-to-be-concerned journalist who blabbers and asks all sorts of speculative questions. An example of the question I heard is just after few hrs. of the blasts a reporter asked Biocon CEO if we can tame the terrorists (not verbatim - but something like that). The CEO (Kiran Majumdar) took the bait and said it is impossible to outsmart the terrorists (or something like that). This isn't good journalism. I'd like them to stop playing on sentiments and stick to some meaningful reporting - which, btw, is becoming a rarity.

Future:
I am sure we'd get desensitive to the whole thing in a month's time and things will slide into the usual. It will serve us well to know that this incident is not random or trivial - so taking this opportunity to put in long term safety safeguards is critical. Citizens need to demand safety from government, companies and fellow citizens. A shopping mall or brand outlet or a movie hall must demonstrate interest in patron's safety. We are used to ignoring our fellow citizens trashing or spitting on the street. We can't use the same yardstick for safety. Demand safety from fellow citizen and you'll make the city safe.

Rockin' Maths

2008-07-11T14:52:00.004+05:30

You have to see this.. you really have to see this..

Fantastic rock video from Cornell using blackboard and chalk.
(see video below)

If you liked this, you'd probably like the food fight video too!

via Feld

How to work with customer service in India

2008-07-10T18:40:00.003+05:30

I learned a new way of working with customer service here. No, its not anything mean. Its actually literally working with them. But to get to that part you have hear this story first.

I have had very bad time previously with broadband connectivity. Airtel DSL was good but when we moved to the new house, I found that Airtel doesn't cover this area. So, I tried multiple options - first was Reliance Wimax which was completely unreliable - with their DHCP going down every 15 minutes. I was literally getting panic attacks when I click on any link - because it loads one time and it doesn't the next. It was getting on my nerves, so I canceled it and moved to Tata Indicom/VSNL Wimax. Well, at least here, I wasn't have much problem except one day it just stopped uploading anything. I can download but not upload. I can see my emails but can't send them (reminds me of Hotel California song ..you can check in.. but can never leave..). Anyways, I went patiently starting from level 1 support to level X support where all executives from VSNL and the dish vendor started showing up at my house with gadgets to figure out the problem. They climbed my roof top and positioned a guy there whose job was to hold the dish in countless combinations while another guy is testing it inside my house.

I got tired!. I canceled their connection and swore never to trust another wireless provider - the technology is not mature and customer support is clueless - it may be better in few years but not just now.

Finally, I went for BSNL DSL. I hesitated previously to go with them because they are new where I live and being a public sector (government owned) company, their customer service level is horrendous. But I didn't have any choice now, did I?

Unlike WiMax, DSL technology is quite stable and given that it comes via a physical phone wire, you don't have the tower & line of sight issues, so the installation was a breeze. It was a challenge to get the technical guy to come to my house. He was a sweet guy but was inventing all possible excuses to not come to my house. Finally I had to send my car to get him picked up and then later drop him!!. This was the 1st lesson of customer service in India. There is nothing called customer service particularly when it comes to dealing with government or related agency. Its the reverse. Customer services the company!!

It started working well until one day it stopped. What's with me and the internet? I just don't know. This time I called up their 1-800 line and had to go through multiple call disconnects before I was talking to an obviously clueless call center guy who knows nothing but to run through an obviously stupid script. I filed a complaint but something didn't sound right to me. I called the next day and was told by another bored call center rep that "its in process" - which is an euphemism for "I don't know what's going on". This time I knew that there's got to be another way. I called up the guy who installed (the guy whom I picked up and dropped) and he gave me some numbers of people at the local phone exchange. It was my lucky day and this chap was in a good mood so he went and checked the exchange routers and said it all looked fine. I asked him if he could come to my house and see if the problem is here but he refused - the technical chaps are on leave (attending some marriage) and they will come tomorrow. Next day the technical chap was picking up some equipment in another side of the town and stuck in traffic. I was parallely calling the 1-800 call center rep who still kept his "its in progress" story consistent. Finally I called the guy who earlier checked the exchange for me and spent about 20 minutes talking about their stress at work, their quotas, how they are under-recognized (I like this guy by now) and then he started taking some interest in my case and told me that I should probably see if a port reset would work - and that's handled at a different exchange. He tried calling that exchange but couldn't get through. I took the number and called that exchange - and had to try 20 times before the call went through. I got an engineer there and asked him to reset the port. He was puzzled that a customer is calling directly and refused to do it (justifiably so). I requested him and told my sob story and he took pity on me and did it.

The next day morning I got my connectivity back. I don't know if it was the reset or something else but it worked and I was relieved.

That is until today. At 4 pm I started a p2p application on my desktop and I lost the connection!!. At least now, I know its the p2p application which is doing something. I am smarter now - so I didn't call the 1800 number to file complaint. I called up my friend at the exchange and requested him to reset the port which he conveyed to the other exchange and in 5 minutes I got my connectivity back!!

Woah! From 5 days of hell to 5 min. to resolution!. That's customer service for you!!

Art on Nature

2008-06-27T18:59:00.000+05:30

People express their feelings in many ways via many media. Indians find public property irresistible to express themselves and are truly at their creative best.

Here is a clump of bamboo trees in Cubbon Park, Bangalore that has unfortunately become such a medium (see pic below)

Oprah's Stanford Commencement Speech

2008-06-24T11:19:00.000+05:30

See video of Oprah speaks to Stanford grads class of 08.
(video below)

Its 30 minutes long and the first 7 minutes is highly skippable - no, seriously, skip it.
The good part of the speech starts at 7:00 where she talks about the lessons she has learned in life. That's when it gets interesting. If you don't want to go through the whole video, I've summarized it below (but its always best to hear the speaker).

3 lessons: Feelings, Failures and Finding Happiness
- When you are doing what you are meant to do, it feels right. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't do it. If you don't know what to do, stay still, until you know what to do.
- Everytime you face a failure, ask - What is this here to teach me?. Get the lesson. Lesson lets you move on.
- Don't react against the bad situation. Merge with that situation instead (quoting from Eckhard Tolle)
- Life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward, you have to give back.

Windows Tip: Pin applications to your Start menu

2008-06-20T09:44:00.004+05:30

I am sure you will this a small but useful tip.

Picture this: How many times have we fumbled around to find the application we want to start. I spend too much time clicking through "All Programs" in the Start. It is frustrating and irritating.

Here's a simple trick that you can use.

Right-Click on any application icon anywhere and you'll find "Pin to Start menu" action. In the image below I am adding Movie Player which is currently buried deep into "All Programs" menu to the Start menu.
Now, you can access Movie Player quickly & directly from your "Start" menu. It will always be there - pinned to the Start menu.

If you get tired of it, you can right-click on it in the Start menu and "Unpin" it.

Death of innocence

2008-06-18T15:29:00.004+05:30

Today when I was preparing for an MBA class that I am teaching here, I was researching on calvin & hobbes and came across this strip rumored to be the last calvin. It poignantly portrays the death of innocence. This moment happens to all of us sometime during our childhood. We don't realize its significance then. What more can I say? Tch!.

Generation Disconnected

2008-06-12T16:17:00.002+05:30

Just now got off a call with a parent of yet another software professional working in the US. Part of the conversation was spent in asking who I work for and explaining who their son works for. When explaining about his son, he referred to a written note and said "he is a SAP architect at CA". I knew those acronyms meant nothing to this dad. Nor did he know if it was a real job except for the pictures the son sends home.

Even my parents can't tell more than a sentence about what I do. So can't scores of parents explain the livelihood that runs their family. They see their sons and daughters running around all the time (including vacation time + nights) with laptops and cell phones.

There is a severe disconnect with my parent's generation and mine. I can already see another disconnect with the next generation where kids are going around texting each other, hanging out on facebook/orkut & jamming on second life. I am sure I'll grow up to say the same thing about my daughter. "She is a X at Y".

Coming back to my conversation, when the dad was reading out his son's job, I could overhear mom at the back poking him to ask whether its a good job. I felt compelled at this point to stop whatever I was doing and explain in layman's term as much as I could that SAP is a software that automates all the things that you guys used to track in notebooks etc., and went on with some examples. There was nods on the other side and a sense of comfort feeling. I am sure I haven't explained it all to them but it is reassuring that another soul who they can't relate to agrees that its a good job.

He found that I had time to explain these things so he threw another one at me. Why does his son work all the time?. Last time he visited India, he was working through the nights - and it was supposed to be his vacation!. Then I explained the digital, 24X7, follow the sun life-jumbled-up-with-work style that we suffer in but I could tell that it just explains the facts to him but something he can never relate to.

He sighed.

That's all our lives have come to - a sigh from our parents!

You heard me.. but can you listen?

2008-06-01T15:03:00.004+05:30

Listening is the most important skill in today's knowledge driven world. When you are interacting with people around you, listening to them (not just hearing them) is crucial for successful relationships.

The common misconception is that listening starts and ends being face to face. Email communications, phone contacts, your non-verbal behavior also send listening signals. Irrespective of age or experience, treating the other person with care and respect is important. You are not listening if

You make the other person wait
You don't ask what their agenda is
You don't have time for them & don't tell them what to expect
Its all about your agenda & how fast you can finish it

Pushing your own agenda - even in the name of efficiency - always backfires. People "move mountains" if they know you listen to them & understand them but they "become mountains" if you are trying to use them.

A good leader listens. It creates an open and inviting environment. It melts any doubts and resistance in the working environment. That's when the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

Listening shows that

You respect the speaker
You understand them (or at least try to)
You are interested to work with them
You care & empathize
You are fun to be with

Another misconception is that you listen only to people who matter to you. This approach has pitfalls. You should listen even if you think the relationship doesn't matter to you today. Even if the relationship has you holding the upper hand.

When your success depends on the support of your eco-system (which is pretty much the case with everything today), you end up underestimating the power of relationships.

So, be sure you listen well to your customers, people you are trying to hire, people you have hired, people you serve, people who serve you, your family, kids - pretty much every other human being you come in contact with.

Oh digital life!

2008-05-29T06:27:00.002+05:30

Via Feld's blog. He talks about why he started blogging

I massively underestimated the value of this to me. When I reflect on the last four years of my blogging, it's been one of the most interesting, enlightening, stimulating, and - ultimately - rewarding things that I've done professionally. It's resulted in new investments, new friends, lots of stimuli I doubt I ever would have encountered, plenty of healthy conflict that has caused me to think through things I otherwise wouldn't have thought much about, and an outlet for my desire to write that is clearly aligned with what I do every day for work.

Even I entered into the digital world out of curiosity. I learn best by doing things (otherwise it doesn't stick with me). And I agree with friends. In the past few years, I have had to unlearn things, learn new things, question lot of opinions and deal with conflicts. All of them have enriched my life & perspectives.

Bangalore gets its spanking new airport

2008-05-23T17:46:00.004+05:30

Bangalore got its new airport on saturday. There's much furore about the connectivity issues but I think it'll all get sorted out pretty soon. We should not underestimate our ability to getting used to new things.

Hiccups are bound to be there for sometime but I think the connectivity issue is over done. There is a round the clock shuttle bus service from all over Bangalore with 10-15 minutes frequency (see shuttle map). I think we should learn not to drive to the airport ourselves and take the shuttle. The facilities seem world class. Check out their website

Now you have it.. now you don't!

2008-05-23T17:12:00.003+05:30

If you want to delight your customers, you underpromise & overdeliver. The other way, unfortunately, doesn't work. Doesn't work no matter how hard you try.

The pity is companies try doing the other way. I don't know if it is the lack of attention to detail but whichever way I look at it, its unacceptable.

Today Meena bought some dresses and got a food voucher coupons with it. I normally ignore reading the fine print on these things (because there are so many of them!) but this time I glanced through and what a glaring & misleading mistake! (see image below)

The cover of the coupon clearly shows a champagne bottle + a couple drinking wine. But if you see the coupon fine print, drinks & desserts are not covered!

This is a clear case of companies not taking customers too seriously.

Summer of discontent

2008-05-21T09:28:00.002+05:30

Summer is very stressful for parents. With the hyperactive kids jumping on the beds and their insatiable appetite for destruction, summer heat is the least of parents' concern.

When I grew up, I used to while away solid 2 months doing.. nothing. The only luxury is that we can do whatever we want - but pretty much holed up in the house, or visit grandparents, uncles, aunts or take a vacation. But outside of it, its 2 months gone to waste.

These days, kids don't have that luxury for couple of reasons. Either that its a case of working parents who can't manage kids all the time, or its a case of kids getting too bored playing on the internet. Fortunately, they do have summer camps & activities to keep their hyperactive minds occupied. I like it this way. People of older generation think that kids should "enjoy" which, in their mind is synonymous with "idling" away the time. But work can be fun - particularly if you engage in activities that stimulates your mind. Which is why I encourage no break for kids. They should be busily scheming things in summer camps. They should be building, exploring, running, breaking... what ever it is that they can do - but they should have mental challenges that can help them explore and push their limits.

Recently a good friend of mine (who shares the same name as mine) told me the fascinating incident of what his kids are doing this summer. His kids are 12 & 10 and they are spending their summer working in an animation company developing a comic strip that they have created. They wake up in the morning, pack their lunch and go to work. They work there as regular employees with all the responsibilities and deadlines!. Imagine the kind of exposure they are getting. This floored me - I have never heard of 7th grade kids developing animation characters. I am quite impressed & proud for them.

I believe that the problem our kids face today is the parents. We limit them. Our pre-conceived notion about what they can do and what they cannot stifles their potential. Its time we let the leash go.

Home Decoration Ideas

2008-05-15T13:44:00.002+05:30

I wish I knew about this website when we were re-modelling our house. But if you are doing it now, you'll thank me. This website has hundreds of pictures and ideas for your dream home!

Go to GetDecorating website to drool!

Your Reality & Your Beliefs

2008-05-14T09:31:00.003+05:30

Lately I am coming across amazing survival stories. Maybe because of my current mind set? Some of them are quite interesting. They all answer the following question.

When no one believes you and you don't have much to believe yourself, all signs tell you that its got little chance, what keeps you going?.

Story 1: Paradise the Hard Way
It took these two couples 5 years (yes.. you read it right.. 5 years) of family separation and clearing acres of tropical jungle by hand to create what they call as a paradise. They built everything themselves. Their eco-resort is operational today but it will take another 5 years for them to even ring a million!!. When I read this story I couldn't believe what they went through & still created their reality. It is sheer hard work and perseverance (read sweat and blood)

Story 2: M Night Shyamalan
We know him from all the eerie dark movies he did. In this interview in India, he talks about how hard it was (and still is) for him to create his reality. He says "If you take luck out of it, you'll see that the difference between me and the next person is my belief system - It's bizarrely high, right from when I was a little kid. I'd think if I focussed enough and devoted my life to something, without a shadow of a doubt, I could play in the NBA if I wanted". He says that people still look at him and his success with suspicion. He is willing to take huge risks and fails often : "I failed twice with my first two films, and when I read The NYTimes' bad review of Sixth Sense, I thought I failed again"

When you are creating your reality, your own beliefs need to dig its heels and stand strong so that you can out do your failures. Shyamalan says it very well "..I am not the best writer, and yet I'm the highest paid writer in the world today - only because I'm more me than they're them.."

Are you more you than they're them?

Knowing your strength

2008-05-09T12:47:00.004+05:30

Seth Godin has summarized best in his post

..if you obsess about doing the thing you are great at and let the mediocre stuff go, you'll do far better..

In his post he gives the example of NY Times struggling to find relevance in today's "all news, all the time & from anywhere" world. But even though what he said is common sense, I personally understand how difficult it is to have clarity on

Knowing what you are great at: The common fallacy is that you think you are great a t a lot of things. I am sure NY Times also thinks its great at many things but its about focus, and sharp focus. Clarity on this is very very hard.
Letting mediocre stuff go: Well, you can see that this is a corollary of (1). Unless you are clear about what you are great at, how can you be clear about what is mediocre stuff. Lack of sharp focus on what you do very well results in you doing lot of things which are mediocre.

I have personally fallen to this trap. I am not sure if I have learned all the lessons here but it is always good to watch out..

Polyglot Peddler

2008-05-08T00:15:00.008+05:30

Recently back from a scorching Goa vacation. We came back really burnt - the summer is hot there and it takes all of 10 steps to completely sweat your T-shirt. If you think acclimatization would make it any bit bearable I don't think so. Even the locals were sweating it out.

Besides the overworked sweat glands, the place is great. We did some para-sailing, jet-skiing, dolphin watching, river cruising & kids enjoyed it thoroughly.

Particularly surprising - there were couple of peddlers on the beach who looked very rustic but I & my wife were shocked to hear them (see the video below) speak perfect English with American accent. The lady in this video can converse in 10 languages including Russian!

Amazing!

Some interesting pictures from the trip:

Another interesting peddler : this one was wearing traditional "lambadi" rustic dress but sports a modern cap!

Tourists come and go, but this dead tree is an eternal witness of every wave (Cavellosim Beach)

I call them the dancing pair (Panjim)

Local Fisherman (Cavellosim)

One says to the other: When I set, you rise! (Panjim river cruise)

If you meet Walt Disney, please tell him that I am imprisoned in a local street fair in Goa! (Colva Beach)

Safe distance?!

2008-04-28T21:06:00.011+05:30

Buses in Bangalore are not known for their safety (you are ok if you are in them) particularly to people driving near it or standing near where it goes. This warning to "Keep Distance 5ft" is probably one of the reason!

I want to meet the engineer who figured out that keeping 5ft away from a bus is just enough to keep your head over your shoulders!

finger olympics!

2008-04-23T13:38:00.003+05:30

Once a while, gmail's web alerts bar on the top of the page throws surprisingly interesting things. TypeRacer - a game for Orkut was one such thing. I don't use Orkut but you can play it standalone without Orkut too. It was particularly interesting because it appeared when my brain was fried.

Typeracer is an online game of racing - not with cars - but by typing words faster. You are pitted against others online at that time. I am pretty good at typing so I tried. My personal best is 70 wpm which puts me in the "Megaracer" category. If you notice in the image, my speed would put me in the top 10-15. Not bad!

Radio

2008-04-20T00:45:00.002+05:30

After a long time, by chance I watched a touching movie : Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris). This one touched me because Radio (the protagonist) seem to have Autism. He is called "Radio" because of his fascination with Radios. The movie doesn't talk about Autism - they don't even mention what disorder Radio has but I can sense it from the high functioning, intelligent yet socially disabled behavior of the main character. Its a story with a happy ending but what shocked me even more is that its a real life story of James Robert Kennedy who is with the same TL Hanna school in South Carolina even today.

Its an amazing story of a disabled kid who finds fantastic support in the high school football coach (played quite well by Ed Harris; Harold Jones in real life) who in turn faces many hurdles to help Radio become part of his family and the school. The school eventually warms up to Radio and he is there even today.

Couple of things which moved me:
When the coach Harold Jones has to defend why Radio should be allowed to continue in the school, he mentions that "..its not what we teach Radio, but what he teaches us. How he loves and respects each of us. If only we treat each other half as nice.."

As a parent of autistic child, I find it hard when ever I try to visualize Tanav when he grows up. I can see a lot of it in this movie. This movie gives me inspiration, courage and hope.

The main challenge of socially disabled children is their integration in the main stream society. Its a struggle to see your child unable to understand common social behavior. They are highly intelligent, have strong feelings, inclinations and interest in everything like you and I. But their social behavior is misunderstood. It is because of our lack of understanding them rather than the other way around. I hope more of us see it this way.

connectivity out!

2008-04-16T09:21:00.002+05:30

It has happened to me again. Few months ago, I ranted about connectivity issues with Reliance Wimax BroadBand connection. It was insufferable and moved to Tata Indicom Wimax Broadband. What was I thinking? It worked OK for some time but then the same issues cropped up again. What was becoming stressful is the lack of consistency. When I wake up in the morning I don't know if I will be able to access emails or not. I just don't know. This impacted my work (most of what I do is based on connectivity). Take away my food and I can survive, but take away my Internet and I go bonkers. Well, it took them 10 days and 5 in house visits and countless phone troubleshooting to give it all up! They still can't figure it out. My recommendation for people consider wireless broadband is that avoid it like plague if you can.

Ultimately, I went with BSNL (an experience that can be recounted as another story) but then, it works - I trust and believe physical wires coming out of the wall! No Internet-Outs!. I had Airtel Wired Broadband earlier and it worked like a charm for one year. The past 6 months with wireless was quite stressful.

Obviously this impacted my blogging (or lack of). Anyways, I am here again.

How's life - I am going through a classic entrepreneur's dilemma - where is the opportunity. nineMotion is getting a makeover trying to find an identity that it can hold on to and grow. In the midst of it, I am confused whether to keep my new french beard or not ;-)

Summer holidays for kids : We are worried about Tanav's progress. Luckily I think we found a good speech therapist for him and he started recently. We are hoping (and planning) to see good progress in him in the coming year.

More later.

Food Fight

2008-03-17T10:48:00.004+05:30

We are made of the food we eat!.
Excellent video by Stefan Nadelman depicting history using food to represent nations starting with WW-II till present day Iraq War. If you don't understand the video or if history is not your cup of tea (like me), here's his video cheat sheet

Looks like this video has being doing the rounds. There are other interesting videos by him on his site.

PS: This is US centric view of history. Stefan also has a disclaimer about it. May not be agreeable to you but its a whole lot of fund to watch and its brilliantly done.

Via Marc Andreeson's blog

back to blogging

2008-03-15T19:35:00.002+05:30

After an interminable break, I am back to blogging.

Why did I take a long break?
- Inertia: Once I got used to not blogging I just couldn't get back in to the same mood.
- Too much going on: There was too much going on with my professional and personal side which kept me busy
- Broadband connectivity issues: Though seems trivial, this has a lot to do with my break. I moved to a new house - didn't have cable connectivity, was working out of wireless connection which was pathetic. Then I got a Wimax wireless broadband connection which was insufferable. Then got the same from another provider (incorrigible?.. no, desparate) and this time it worked fine.

Why am I getting back to blogging?
- My friends: they still ping me about it
- Back in mood: I have a new appreciation for regular bloggers. Its exhausting because all you think about it is what to blog. I didn't want to become that - I just wanted this to not stress me out.

Experiments in 2007

2008-01-05T01:53:00.000+05:30

I am grateful to the year 2007 - I learnt a lot in this year...

I learnt that being in (and surviving) tough situations is a great and "fun" way of learning. I wouldn't have learnt one-tenth of what I learnt this year if I didn't happen to be in tricky situations.

I learnt that everyone is busy with their own journey but still they are very helpful when I need them. It humbles me to see how eager and warm people receive me.

I learnt that I am more selfish that I think (which is not such a bad thing :-))

I learnt that I create hurdles for myself by constantly trying to "control" my life. This make me look at everything like a competition and I end up analyzing too much. "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans". I am learning to free my life from myself.

I learnt that its not good enough to just love one's life, you must love it unconditionally.

I learnt that I was wrong in assuming that risk lies outside and in others. The biggest risk, however, lies in me at the point where I lose my confidence. Far too many times has it happened that when I was ready to give up, someone came along and showed me a simple way out.

I learnt that I create history with every one of my actions. The good news is that I don't have to create the kind of history that others read about. As long as the history I make is good enough for myself its worth it. The pity is that many times I act as though the history I create is not important and that's when what I do loses its meaning.

I learnt that probability of failure if I try is 50% but the probability of failure if I don't try is 100%. So, why not take a chance?.

I learnt that I am getting old because I started understanding my parents :-)

Hope your year was great. Here's wishing you a fantastic 2008!

Back to blogging!

2007-12-11T12:13:00.000+05:30

It is a long break - but I think a much needed one. 3 months of blog break. It is exactly on Sep 11 that I wrote my last post.

Much has happened in my life since then. There was a bit of vacationing, soul searching, laziness and the breathing space that I needed. We moved to our new house after months of hard work and pushing limits, then came holidays, more work, friends, get-together...

So, what happened with the 'Bit Literacy' and "4 hr work week" philosophy that I so much wanted to bring into my life?

After 3 months, the score is average - I check my emails more often than I want to but I have streamlined my usage and keep the zero-email-in-inbox policy. It is helping me wade through this otherwise uncontrollable cancerous growth of digital cacophony. I have read good books (will review them in the coming days), spending good time with family (can do better), watched couple of movies and started taking fitness seriously (quite excited about it). More detailed update as I resume blogging speed.

I am grateful for my friends who started emailing me because they missed me on this blog. I also started getting calls from my worried friends to check if everything's ok.

I have never felt better!

Digital Silence

2007-09-11T07:05:00.001+05:30

I am taking in a bit of digital silence into my life. Inspired by books "Bit Literacy" and "Four hour work week", I am adjusting my current bit-streaming torrentious lifesytle. So, going through a detox period followed by a new behavior to adapt and tame this internet beast which - if let it to itself was taking over my life.

I will write about my experience after couple of weeks of experimentation and adaptation. Till then you will find posts sporadic. In the mean time I will leave you with this thought - how much does internet and email control your life?

Blogged with Flock

How beautiful are you?

2007-09-02T10:49:00.001+05:30

Why don't you hang yourself instead of a painting?. That's what MoMA is doing now and its pretty darn cool. You can get your DNA or fingerprint blown up on a canvas. Wouldn't it make a cool conversation piece? A word of caution - I would be careful if you have some dubious history. CSI-NY had an episode recently where they caught the criminal based on the portrait hanging on the wall.

I loved the website's checkout process. You can select a painting size and color and it shows you how it will look on the wall against a sofa. great website. Just check out even if you are not ready to bare your inner identity!

Blogged with Flock

China throws it back at US

2007-09-02T10:21:00.001+05:30

Today China "surprisingly" uncovered microscopic worms in wooden product packaging and several sub-standard vitamin pills from the US.

Hmm.. sounds too much coincidental given US's recent discovery of poison laced toothpaste from China..wo

Blogged with Flock

World's powerful women

2007-09-01T20:52:00.001+05:30

Forbes has listed world's 100 most powerful women.
Some interesting facts from the list:

Condi Rice #4, Indra Nooyi #5, Sonia Gandhi #6, Oprah #21, Queen Elizabeth II #22, Melinda Gates #24, Hillary Clinton #25, Laura Bush #60, Katie Couric #63.
The list comprises 66 business execs, 34 govt leaders
7 from China, 1 from India (but if you live in India you'd wrongly count Indra Nooyi also as Indian), 7 from UK, 50 from US

I am sure you are wondering how they came up with this list. Here's Forbes ranking scheme

Our ranking system starts with a list of women who have crossed certain thresholds. Most of them run companies, governments or nonprofits, or are very close to the top. A handful have established power bases in other ways (an entertainment entrepreneur, a judge and an author have been on the list). The power ranking score is based on a composite of visibility (measured by press citations) and economic impact.

The latter, in turn, reflects three things: résumé (career achievements and titles, so a prime minister counts as more powerful than a senator); the size of the economic sphere over which a leader holds sway; and a multiplier that aims to make different financial yardsticks comparable. For example, a chief executive is assigned the company's sales in the economic impact calculation, while a foundation executive is assigned the foundation's assets. The assets get a higher multiplier than sales.

Blogged with Flock

Distracted SUN

2007-08-24T22:29:00.001+05:30

Via SUN's blog

This has got to be the stupidest move that it doesn't surprise you. Sun Microsystems is changing its ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA. Big deal you may say but its so much of distraction. Sun's CEO Jonathan's enthusiasm and self-congratulatory explanation for this move just baffles me. No wonder there are so many confused and negative reactions in the comments.

I have no clue what Jonathan's mention of ubiquitous Java's image being the thing of the future meant. I don't know what warrants this move or why it was done now. May be Jonathan was bored of looking at his single digit stock price long enought that he started believing in chinese numerology (see his comical explanation for eight strokes in java logo). Glad I don't own Sun stock.

Blogged with Flock

CD dies young

2007-08-18T19:36:00.001+05:30

Compact Disc turned 25 this august. It remarkable path to fame is also witnessed by its rapid obsolescense by the new kids on the block like ipods, file-sharing, bittorrents. It has served us well in its time and has ushered in the true digital age.

Death of the CD is easy to understand because you own an iPod. But along with it something else dies too. The way music or movie is distributed. Currently you go out and buy CD. But in a few years that will be an amazing fairy tale because the sound and video bits literally stream into your house and to your iPods and PCs. You may be scorning at this prediction but did you know that today BitTorrent traffic amounts to roughly 35% of traffic on the internet?

Blogged with Flock

World's worst bandit

2007-08-15T22:38:00.001+05:30

This isn't funny but couldn't help laughing my guts out. His name is Kazee but I suspect there is a "r" missing in it because he is the craziest bandit I have seen.

Blogged with Flock

Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera (This country of yours..)

2007-08-15T09:12:00.001+05:30

Today India enters 60th year of Independence. As an Indian I can't help
ponder on my life, my connection with my country (and get
sentimental). After 8 years I am in India on the Independence day. When
I watch school buses with tri-color flag it reminds me of my school
days when we prepare speeches, competition, singing and games. It has
always been greater than life experience. Much more touching than any
festival.

This day stands for all countries and people striving for freedom.

Today we put aside our cynicism, grievances, frustration and take a deep breath. Tomorrow we start again.

Proud to be alive here.

Watch this video from the hindi movie Swades. Beautiful song by A.R.Rahman

Embedded Video

Blogged with Flock

Rejected haiku

2007-08-14T07:43:00.001+05:30

My haiku is not happy happy. It got rejected by tinywords

hot summer sun
squinting eye
reflection from cold coke tin

Can someone enlighten me what's wrong with this and how I can improve?

Blogged with Flock

Thousand lives

2007-08-07T13:38:00.002+05:30

The saying goes that some live one life during their lifetime while others live thousand lives. What does living thousand lives mean?.

Its not cloning yourself obviously. But when I look around, I can identify people who lived thousand lives. Here's how I identify them

1. They are happy with their life (contentment)
2. They do multiple things and enjoy doing it (versatility)
3. They fail but don't let that affect what they do (optimism)
4. They have supreme self confidence (confidence)
5. They look at each experience as learning (curiosity)
6. They never grow too old for anything (enthusiasm)

Its difficult to find all the above in an individual and its not necessary. 2-3 out of the 6 will do.
What eventually matters is the richness in how you live.

The surprising part is that I have seen "thousand-lives" people across the wealth and fame spectrum. Many are poor and unknown. But to them, their lives and how they live it is what matters.

Blogged with Flock

Tanav's Alphabets

2007-07-31T20:46:00.001+05:30

Tanav surprised me and Meena today with his alphabet writing. We knew he could write a few but mostly he wants us to do dotted pictures of the alphabet and he traces it out. Today morning to our wild surprise he was dishing out alphabets on paper

He does mirror images of letters. It has reduced recently but you can still see the reverse C, E, Z (looks like reverse 2 in purple) and L. The W he wrote is actually M. After writing he looked at it and turned the book upside down and showed it to me. clever.. clever..

Blogged with Flock

Guy Kawasaki's interview with Moira Gunn

2007-07-31T17:43:00.004+05:30

Brilliant interview by Guy Kawasaki with Moira Gunn on her new book "Welcome to Biotech Nation". Some facts are shocking and others very close to my heart. Moira is very articulate and does a great job of explaining "Biotech" and how it relates to us today. Some excerpts of the interview:

It was shocking to know US's innocent-until-proven-guilty approach to gen-mod products

"...Dan (Quayle) and the boys chewed on that for a bit, and then they came up with the idea that genetically-modified foods were safe if there was no scientific evidence to the contrary..."

On why we don't see "Genetically Modified" on food labels

"..When the food labels were legislated, genetically-modified foods weren’t approved for human consumption. Our food labels tell us everything else in the world about what we’re ingesting, but we don’t know if the food has been grown from genetically-modified seeds..."

On corn as food-or-ethanol debate she clears it up saying food is only a small part of the corn but ethanol uses even the stalk and the stem

"..There is an emergent ethanol process that has been developed which also uses the stalk and other “cellulosic” parts of the plant, as opposed to the kernels of corn.."

On presidential's stem cells dying, it was a eye opener to me about how stem cells change and the word "dying" is a synonym of "it-can't-be-used-anymore-because-it-changed"

"..So, it’s not that the stem cells die, but rather that the stem cell line is producing cells which are no longer identical to the stem cell it started with. To say that the Presidential stem cell lines are “dying” can seem misleading to people who don’t understand the science, but still, it’s a very important concept..."

On diabetes which I am personally affected by, its an epidemic today

"..what I learned about diabetes was the real eye-opener. First of all, one out of six people worldwide are either pre-diabetic or diabetic—and over half don’t even know it.."

Overall, a great interview worth reading. I am going to get Moira Gunn's book.

Blogged with Flock

Diabetes

2007-07-25T13:47:00.001+05:30

I have diabetes since 2001. Before I was diagnosed I never knew much about it except that everyone keeps telling their grand parents who have it to not add sugar in their coffee or not eat sweets. Well, I wasn't a grand father so I was puzzled as to why I became diabetic just when I entered 30s.

It seems that diabetes is in your genes waiting to explode. The trigger typically happens later in your life but due to the rapid changing lifestyle of my generation, it happens much sooner. The typical triggers are obesity, sedentary lifestyle, over eating (or bad eating) and stress. Well I know a lot of people who are obese and overeat but they are not diabetic. Your gene vulnerability also matters. So, in my case I got diabetes as a birthday gift from my parents - which I opened in 2001 :-)

There's the glass-half-empty and glass-half-full point to this story but I am not going to delve into it. To cut the long story short, after a full year of 5 stage grieving and periodic ups and downs, the current reality is still a struggle to maintain blood sugar levels.

In the past 10 months it had gone way off balance and even after heavy medical dosage there is no suppressing this glycemic tsunami. 1 month ago my doctor then suggested that I use insulin even though I am Type 2. I was hesitant at first but now I am a convert. Thanks to the medical advancements, the process of injecting insulin has become very easy, almost painless and doesn't hinder my daily activities. Within two weeks, my glucose levels came down and they are bordering normal levels today. I can't feel any great mentally and physically.

The point of this post is that like my folks I had apprehensions initially when I was put on insulin. Typically this is not understood as good news. Today I think it is completely misplaced. My limited knowledge of this disease tells me that insulin has far fewer side effects and more effective than oral medication (I am taking both insulin and oral medication today). When I visit my doctor next I am going to discuss if I can continue on insulin and reduce oral medication. I have to thank medical advancements for this.

(In my next post I will discuss a little more about the causes, biological nature and various treatments of diabetes)

Blogged with Flock

Biiiiig Task or Internet?

2007-07-24T10:09:00.001+05:30

I could totally empathize with this. Infact the tiny dude in this cartoon is me!!
Dave Walker is a genius!

Blogged with Flock

I think...

2007-07-23T11:34:00.000+05:30

I use the words "I think" a lot - both when I speak and more so when I write. When I look back at my writing, I say "I think" just to avoid conflict - as though the opinion is just mine and if the listener/reader doesn't approve of it, its ok too since what "I think" need not be universal and hence the reader's disapproving opinion can co-exist with mine. I am consciously trying to change it but its not easy.

I grew up in a large combined family with my grand parents and uncles living with us and lots of relatives living close by. The culture fostered was that of give and take, conflict avoidance and personal sacrifices for common good. This has a deeper impact in the way I behave. Today my family is nuclear and I encourage discussing opinions and conflicts in the open. But it takes courage on my side to do it.

There are three ways I deal with conflicts
1. Avoid it
2. Deal in writing or through someone else
3. Deal face-to-face or over phone.

Obviously #1 is most comfortable and natural for me and #3 least. But I realize that #3 is the best way to deal with conflicts and #1 bad. In my adolescence, I was proud of #1 since it meant "personal sacrifice" for the greater good/peace. What I didn't realize then is that #1 erodes my self-respect, encourages others to take advantage of me and diminishes others' respect towards me. I ended up wallowing in self pity for years. I learnt this lesson painfully over years. Introspection & a heavy dose of self-help books also helped me.

Past few years, I have handled conflicts consciously using #1. I prepared a lot, used a framework for dealing with them, convinced myself and then did it. Even today, it doesn't come natural to me. I have reached a point where my mind is convinced that #3 is the best approach and it works but my heart still palpitates at the hint of confrontation. It will take many more years for un-conditioning but I know I will succeed.

I had used "I think" in this post 12 times. I went back and deleted them. How many times do you "think"?

My niece's computer art..

2007-07-22T13:37:00.000+05:30

Swarna is my cute little 7 yrs old niece. She did this amazing painting on my computer. A full moon night with shooting stars and lots of other stars filling the night sky. She made three "secret" wishes.

Adobe Wall

2007-07-14T17:59:00.000+05:30

via Brad Feld's post on Interacting with the wall:

There was a time I immaturely thought that branding and advertising is dead in this world of p2p democratized global village - where everyone can reach anyone, everyone can get specifically anything they want. But what ensued is chaos. Very soon there were more websites than people breathing in this world and you needed to stand out. Your website address mattered more than your postal address. A new kind of creativity unleashed. Today I am wiser because I think that I think immaturely (read that sentence again ;-)). Two things are extremely important today: 1. Creativity and 2.Adaptability. Two companies shine brightly in these aspects. 1. Apple and 2. Adobe.

A long way gone - Book review

2007-07-14T17:06:00.000+05:30

A long way gone is the real life story of a boy soldier Ishmael Beah in Sierra Leone - how he lost his parents, his brothers, his village, dignity and everything that mattered but still came through. Very moving story.

No book has ever touched me so deeply. For some time I wondered why until it struck me that so far, all the human struggles I have ever read happened long before I was born - Shindler's list was difficult but then it happened in 1940s. What's different here is that the years in this book is 1990s. Ishmael is 10 years younger than I am. I could not only relate to the times but I can place myself in some part of the world having a good time when Ishmael was running many miles bare foot with bullets chasing him and the flesh in his foot scorched by sun. Most of the book is very difficult read and I just couldn't take it. If not for the relatively happy ending given his circumstances, my heart would have inconsolably wept.

Civil wars and genocides were alien concept to me. I was shocked by Hotel Rwanda (and couple of similar ones) but it didn't touch me as this book did. More so because its an personal account by an adolescent. Many passages are sadly beautiful. The story telling is great with timelines intertwined with anecdotes of past (I am sure his new mother in NY - who is a professional story teller help him on this).

A must read for everyone.

(PS: I picked up this book on a whim during a casual 5 minute browsing at a small book store next to a restaurant in Bangalore. Most of my favorites books were serendipitous picks .. Always wonder how many such great books have I missed?..)