Where do they go?

Airport is a place where you can see lot love & happiness. People who are travelling for the first time, people who are
travelling on vacation, people who are travelling back after a successful business meet, people who come to see the loved
ones off and people who come to receive the loved ones are the few to quote for love & happiness. Leave out the frustration
that arises because of the flight delays.

I always enjoy my flight journeys. Every trip is a different experience. Sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes weird (such as the one that I am gonna talk about).

Couple of weeks ago, I was waiting for my delayed flight at Bangalore Airport almost close to mid night. I was sitting right in front of the booth where the airline staffs announce the status of each flight. I eagerly started observing the representatives (strictly not because that they were girls, please believe me) from each Airlines announcing the delays and departures of their flights.

At the time of departure of almost every delayed flight, representative of the airline was searching for at least a couple of 'missing' passengers. Jet Airway's representative howled over a million times about a missing couple and some Gupta. After a while she was searching for that Gupta guy by visiting each and every row of seating. I was seriously started thinking where do they go? To the rest room? Gone home of frustration after a long wait? To the books shop? I couldn't get the answer myself. While deeply thinking about these people, I dozed off for a while.

At last, my time of boarding arrived. I boarded the plane and sat on a seat next to a man aged in mid forties who was wearing a Gray coloured Italian Suit. He held a blackberry in his hand. I peeped eagerly to see what he was typing. I could only get to see '......close the deal'. Then he received a call. In a few seconds of listening he said

‘…When is the next available date?’

‘....then give appointment in August’

‘…bye’.
I thought he must be a well do to business man. The moment I saw his face I felt that he looked awfully familiar. He looked like my father when he was at that age. I observed that he had a scar on his face exactly like mine. He switched off his blackberry duly responding to the request
over PA by airline staff. He turned to me, smiled and said you look like me when I was at your age. I was surprised to hear that. I started probing about his background. He said he was a CEO of some company that I have never heard of. He originated from the same place as me and studied in the school where I did study. What a weird coincidence? I simply couldn’t believe that. He didn’t seem to be surprised when I said that we both had same background. I humbly asked for his good name. I felt like I was struck by a lightening on his reply. He said that his name was Seenivasan. While I was still in the high voltage shock, a person came to me and shook my shoulder

'…excuse me sir, are you the one travelling in the flight S2-0123 to Chennai?'

I nodded.

His face showed the irritation explicitly and his mouth said, 'Sir the plane is waiting for you as you are the last person to be boarded and we are looking all around for you'.

I came to reality, oh my god...all that was just a dream.

Well, it's not everyday you get to meet "you" after some 15 years, eh?

Now I know where do all those missing people go?

By the way, do you want to share some of your best/worst experience in Airport?

Me, Elvis, Golf and Wine

My grandma started worrying about me when I adopted some habits newly. Her grandy (yeah, that's me) was watching programmes in unknown languages on TV. I heard her whispering to her friend (another oldie in my neighborhood) that I must have gone mad after 4 years of my engineering degree. This happened when I was doing my fourth year engineering.

Originating from a small town (well, my friends still call it a village. But I don't agree) I was not exposed to English pop music & albums at all. One fine day I made a decision that I should start watching MTV and Channel-V to gain my knowledge on English music. I call it as 'knowledge' purposefully because I thought getting such exposure would make me a good schmoozer. In less than a year from then I was supposed to join my first job, which would have people from all over India with different cultural background. That’s the motive behind my decision. I learnt the names such as Bryan Adams, Lou Bega, Backstreet Boys, Shania Twain and etc thru that exposure. I must say that to some extent my newly gained knowledge helped me in making me a schmoozer at various situations.

While I was extending my knowledge horizon on my English music, one fine day (it happened few years after my grandma started worrying about my habit) in Minneapolis, USA, an American was mentioning about someone called Elvis during her conversation about music. I thought Elvis was a new singer whom I missed to notice. So I shrugged my shoulder (just for style) & declared that I never knew who Elvis was. She gave me a satiric smile and asked 'don't you have Elvis in India?’. Then she taught me that Elvis was a very famous singer in the world a few decades ago. I must say that it was one helluva embarrassing moment for me.

Few weeks after that, at my work place a karaoke contest was organized and they gave a list of songs which participants could choose to sing. I saw a few of Elvis's songs in it among hundreds of 'unknown' singers to me. With my friend's motivation I made a brave decision to participate in that contest. I bought a music CD of Elvis with the songs listed in the contest and started practicing.

D-day arrived. I was surrounded with an intimidating crowd of 300 Americans, I saw raising eye brows in the first couple of rows when I went on to the stage, my vision started becoming blurry, I grabbed the mike, my face was brave & legs were shivering (as vadivelu says: building strong, basement weak), I opened my mouth, I started the first line 'You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog'. (Just try imagining Elvis singing a song with thick south Indian accent). I must say that I made people around me very happy that day. I saw all of them smiling (or should I say burst out laughing?). Also I gave them a great topic to chat at dinner tables with their family. I finished singing the song and walked with my chins up and real proud like a successful gladiator even though there are heavily bleeding wounds. People (read Americans) cheered and applauded and came congratulating me. Later, it helped me to make some acquaintances at my work place too.

Remember it was a contest. They gave 3 prizes ($100, $75 and $50 cash prizes). I lost it. But the very next day, I got an email declaring that I got an 'honorary prize' of $25 and a T-Shirt. Not bad, eh? So at last, my MTV, Channel-V exposure paid me back.

Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management says: "While Indian engineers are good at maintaining and testing software, it's about time they also learnt how to hold a glass of wine and swing a golf club. It will go a long way in building a global brand".

When I read the above excerpt in the last edition of Business Today I had the flashback about my decision to get exposed to English songs & how that exposure came in handy many times enabling me to break ice, to make conversation and to make acquaintance.

Conclusion: When India growth story is keenly watched by the world and when many Indian companies are going on M&A spree, it is imperative that Indian companies should produce executives who are not only competitive but also comparative with their counterparts in the foreign companies.

(Well, when my wife is okay with my swinging a golf club, she is strictly prohibitive about my holding a glass of wine. As a future executive and a corporate leader, I am fighting so hard with my wife to improve my soft skill(?).)

Health is Wealth

Insurance is a risky business. I feel that in India awareness of insurance is not that great. The importance people give for medical insurance is far lesser than that for life insurance. While they worry about what happens when they are gone, they fail to give adequate thought about the mishaps that could happen while they are living. The probability of dying in accident is much lower than getting severely injured but not-dying. Many people go out of job for a longer duration due to accidents or some chronic diseases. Just by comparing the number of people (who I know) having life insurance with that of medical insurance, it seems that people are more worried about mortality than the morbidity. I think it is mainly because of the unawareness of what a medical insurance is. Even today in rural areas insurance to them is LIC. That’s it.

To me, medical insurance is more important than a life insurance because it aids me during my life-time. I do not want to spend all my savings on medical expenses. Well, there are some life insurance plans which cover chronic diseases too, let us leave that out for this argument.

A recent news states that Health insurers in India have been paying Rs.125 as claim for every Rs.100 paid as premium. That has resulted in hikes in medical insurance premium. I believe that the main cause for this is that the number of people having medical insurance is far less. To my knowledge, salaried people who are working for some established companies have group health insurance. Apart from that may be people with good awareness would have medical insurance cover. That’s it. There is a huge crowd of people with no sufficient knowledge about medical insurance.

Only when large number of people gets medical insurance the premium will be lower as the claims pay out would be made break-even by the amount paid as premium.

As per a statistics from census bureau of US, the percentage of people without health insurance coverage in US in 2005 is 15.9%. I couldn’t get a similar data for India to compare. But I am sure that it would be somewhere in seventies or eighties. In US there is a constant crib about medical insurance not giving adequate coverage to all kinds of diseases (like the one comes in the movie John Q). Here in India, the case is entirely different.

As a business, I think health insurance companies in India have lot of untapped market. With a proper awareness camps and advertisements they can get a great business. I don’t even remember seeing TV commercials for health insurance.

I used to tell my friend 4 years back that I want to start a medical insurance company in India as it has a very good untapped market. I feel that this holds good even today. But starting an insurance company needs a great capital. Given a chance I would start a health insurance company and my primary market would be rural areas.

By the way, do you have medical insurance for you and your family? Click here to learn about various options you have for health insurance in India.

Klog

I came across this K-log (Kid Blog) of a 5 years old kid. The kind of exposure kids get these days are really amazing.

Cho Chweet....I enjoyed reading.

(I am sure that this kid will start writing on his own in a year. He has it in his genes...)

Giving Back...

Few months back I got a feedback from one of my colleagues that it was time I started giving back to the organization whatever I had learnt till then. (I was on a learning curve). Last couple of weeks I am hearing his voice echoing in my ears repeatedly, but on an entirely different note.

In corporate world there is something called CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility. When a concern is becoming big it starts thinking about contributing something towards the improvement of its region/society. I have not seen a start up or a company that is making losses talking about CSR. Only the biggies that are making good profits and have good resources talk about CSR. These companies take up some kind of social service activities such as adult literacy program, environmental cleaning etc.

When I was in school and college, I used to think a lot about social services. I used to console myself that I could not do anything because I did not have money and once I got into to a job and started making my dough I would start fulfilling my service desires. Then it was justifiable and in line with a company’s CSR policy (?!). Almost three quarters of a decade into making money (being on earning curve) I have not given back anything significant so far to the society. It does not have to be just money it could be of any form like my knowledge, my time, my advice etc; it could be to anyone but without expecting a favour in return.

Now I am using 'my busy life' as the scapegoat. :(

I keep getting my colleague's voice in this context again & again and grows louder day by day. I think it is time I started something pretty soon before I become deaf.

Or should I just call my psychiatrist to fix an appointment for my hearing voices?

Exploit...

On a sunday afternoon I got a mail from one of my team members updating the status of his work. He is a smart one in the team so obviously victimized with loads of work, which made him to work during the weekend. Is this an exploitation?

This may sound like exploitation. But actually it is not. It is opportunity in disguise.

India and China are becoming (should I say already became?) outsourcing hub for the developed nations like US & UK. As a matter of fact US & UK are exploiting the low cost labour in India and China. But for the countries like India and China with over population and poor employment opportunities this 'exploitation' is certainly an 'opportunity'. In fact a great opportunity that has changed many lives.

Total number of employees in India's top 3 IT companies alone has reached around 200,000. Recruitment projections each of these companies show are mind-boggling. Our work environments are becoming more and more competitive with highly intellectual people around. To stand out in the crowd there is a lot need to be done by each individual. It has become not an unusual thing for the people who are 'meeting the expectations' to end up with lower performance ratings. Everyone is crazy about 'making a difference' and going that 'extra mile'.

There is a saying: You can achieve little with little sacrifice; you can achieve more with more sacrifice; you can achieve great with great sacrifice. Achievement is always directly proportional to the sacrifice. If we look at the history of great achievers there would be lot of sacrifices in their lives.

In my experience I have realized that when it comes to getting opportunities & growth one should let others exploit (positively). That’s the hard reality now.

Upset

I always wonder how much the readership of my blog is. Not a bad thing to have for a burgeoning writer (yeah, that's me...). Recently I re-enabled the web counter which I had disabled sometime ago due to some technical reasons. Whenever I make a new post I send out a mail to my friends requesting them to read and comment it. Most of them read it; some of them comment it and few of them send mails to me with their comments.

There is this good old friend of mine who never commented nor sent any mail commenting it but I constantly make my request & nag him to read my blog. I was wondering whether he really reads it or not as he never commented about it. I wanted to know his comments very badly because we go a long way, he knows me very well and he had been a great moral support during my ups & downs. We spend hours talking about books. He is a voracious reader. He introduced me the authors like P.G.Wodehouse. One day, he casually commented that he would read my blog only if his name was mentioned in my posts. After a few days I sent him a note saying that he could find his name in my blog. I lied. I lied because of a stupid avidity wanting to make him read my blog and to know his opinion. He did read it and found that I had lied. He is now pretty mad at me and neither answering nor returning my calls. That has made me pretty upset.

This post is to make my open apology to my dear friend Venki.

Venki, sorry for what I did.

Playing Welch

I have a machine, which constantly fails to meet my objectives. It has lot of performance issues. I could easily decide to throw away and purchase a new one or send the machine to a repair shop. Unlink of machines addressing performance issues of people who work for you is not an easy thing. That too when it comes to people with ‘attitude’, it becomes a great challenge to address the matter. Performance management is still an area where a lot of research is going on and is an area using which business consultants make handsome money. There is no standard performance management practice across the globe. Each organization adopts or creates its own practice, which none of its employees agree that that is good. In most of the companies there is no ‘performance management’ only ‘perception management’.

It’s quite usual that we have to face people with performance problems at work. There were many instances during when I wanted to sack people out of my project (if not out of the company). As a boss I could easily decide whether a person would scale up or not and whether to sack him or keep him. But it is the phase that comes next which always makes me sick. I think of the consequences to that person after sacking. Empathy would occupy me all over and I would not be able to make a decision which is of organization’s interest. I would try to find at least one or two qualities in the person to keep him. Who am I helping by sacking a person who has real performance issue? Is it me? or my boss? or my boss's boss? Who is the 'corporate'? Are those mortars and bricks the corporate? The consequence of keeping or sacking him ultimately goes to the investor, the one who enjoys or suffers the good or bad results of the company.

A few weeks ago, I felt pathetically helpless when I had to reject 7 out of 8 people whom I interviewed for recruitment because they did not meet the expectation. When I had to reject people from rural background, from a small unknown village I would feel like hell. I put my legs in their shoes to realize how would they feel or react to the negative result of the interview. This may be because of the fact that I myself was not from a great background. In one of such situations, in my previous organization, my class mate from my college & I who were in the panel decided to select a person instead of reject. We justified ourselves saying that when we could survive that candidate would also survive. Was it unethical?

Mr. Jack Welch, ex-CEO of the empire GE was a great manager. He is one of the best managers of the century. When I read his autobiography ‘Straight from the Gut’ a few years ago it was very motivating. I have strongly recommended to many people to read this book. Being a CEO for 20 years for an empire like GE and growing it multi-fold is not an easy job. He is notoriously known as brutal & ruthless for the way he managed his human resources to ensure good performance. In his saga he had laid off 100,000 people from his organization. In his autobiography he explains how to manage & ensure performance of your people. It goes somewhat like this: (sorry that this is not a verbatim recital from that book) When a shop owner approached him of advice on how to manage the performance of the people employed in that shop, Jack advices to lay off bottom 10% of the people in terms of performance. When the shop owner said that all in his team was performing pretty well, Jack advised to go ahead with the lay off rule so that it would result in improved performance of the others too. This is how threat is injected into the veins of the employees and more ‘performance’ is extracted using the survival of the fittest concept. Unlike most other organizations GE demands year on year productivity improvement from its offshore vendors. Terror, eh?

I like Mr.Welch. I liked his style. But Playing Welch is not easy. I can’t do that. I am too sympathetic to have the guts to bite the silver bullet as Mr.Welch. I am experimenting ways which work for me & will adopt in the longer run. Who knows one day some one might write a blog on ‘Playing Seeni’.

Kindergarten Engineers

A week ago, my wife & I visited one of my friend’s home. My friend has a kid who goes to kindergarten. My friend was telling that the next day his kid had his term exam. I was observing the kid for sometime and I observed no sense of tense or no seriousness of the exam. The kid was busy playing and enjoying himself with out a trace of exam fever in his deeds. Whereas his mom & dad highlighted a numerous times during their conversation with me about the kid’s exam and they sounded real nervous about it.
Suddenly an analogy struck me.

Back at my work place I have many fresh out of college people in my team. Having those kids in the team keeps the work place very lively with all the fun, as if having kids around. I have observed that most of the freshers would not have the seriousness of project delivery deadlines while me and my team leads are pretty worried about meeting the deadlines & meeting the quality etc. When retrospected my good old ‘fresher’ days I realized that I was no exception.

Now it’s my turn to worry and be serious on behalf of them (as someone else did on behalf of me). However, I am sadistically happy that soon they would grow up to realize the seriousness of the environment they are associated with. Some cycle that!

Boon or Bane

Mr.P.V.Mohandas Pai, Board Member and Human Resources Chief of Infosys Technologies, has stated in a recent interview that "the trgedy of the whole IT revolution is that people are becoming less humane in the sense they are losing inter personal skills, the ability to move with people, be sensitive to each other. The softer side of life is giving way..."

How true is that statement..! After spending a long day at office I come home and sit in front of my lap top to do some more work or to write blog or to browse the net. If not in front of the Lap top I wish to spend my time with a book or in front of the idiot box. Rather I could call up a friend or visit a friend or neighbor to catch up with them. Looks like it is becoming tough to be humane. I admit honestly that my inter-personal skills are going down. Everyone I meet or talk I tend to think them as prospect in my 'network' rather than opening up myself to see a friend in them. What a pathetic state to be in?!

Automobiles...not light weighted

A serendipitous bump into statistics about Automobile industry took me by surprise. I did a little bit of surfing & digging to write this post.

To start with, a small comparison to understand how big Automobile Industry (US) is...

Top 10 Hollywood Movies in terms of collection so far are:
Titanic (1997)
Star Wars (1997)
Shrek 2 (2004)
E.T (1982)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Spider-Man (2002)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge os the Sith (2005)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
The Passion of Christ (2004)

The Total collection is $4,268,752,087.

Total sales revenue of one vehicle line (Ford F-Series) for one year (2004) in US was $28,185,330,000. [Sales of 939,511 units at an average sales price of $30,000]

Amazing, ain't it? Well, let us keep the comparison of profits aside.

In 2004, Total revenue from new vehicle sales in US is $270,000,000,000. This revenue is somewhere in between the GDPs of Columbia and Saudi Arabia in year 2004. They are ranked at positions 31 & 30 in terms of GDP that year.

As per year 2005 data, US is at number one in total number of cars & light commercial vehicles produced with 11,524,000 units. India is at 12th position with 1,406,000 units.

I never realized that US auto industry is this big. Now, I feel that I should have read Lee Iococca's autobiography, which is lying in my book shelf for a pretty long time. Another interesting fact is that new car sales revenue is going south in US in recent years whereas in India it is picking up for obvious reasons. I have always thought that in India, the sales revenue is more because of the first time car buyers. But that is not the fact. Major revenue comes from the buyers who buy their 2nd or 3rd car. Just one and a half years with my first car I have seriously started contemplating about my second car - UV type. Looks like this can be extrapolated to all car owners. The automotive market in India is going pretty steady, may be that is the reason why major to niche players in automobile sector are opening their shops in India. In a way I am happy that Chennai is becoming like what Detroit is for US. This may sound like a tall claim now, but the future is not too far.

Following is an excerpt from McKinsey's report:
In the span of a generation, India's automotive market has transformed a failing local industry into a thriving producer of reasonably priced, reliable small cars, some for export. Alongside the assemblers, successful component manufacturers and suppliers have developed. Still, while India's industry is booming, consumers, rather than investors, are reaping the greatest rewards. Read the rest from

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/newhorizons/auto.asp if it sounds interesting.

The Threat, The Fear and The Panic

'The playing field is being levelled', the statement made by Mr.Nandan was the inspiration for Mr.Thomas L.Friedman to coin the title for his bestseller 'The World is Flat'.

A few weeks ago I went to Bangalore on an official trip. An advertisement board in Bangalore airport grabbed my attention and made me to stand, stare and shake my head. The ad-board has a golf field, Tiger Woods is walking up on a slope in the golf field and the ad-line goes 'There is no such thing as level playing field'.

Probably many would have guessed when I said the name, Tiger Woods. Yes, the advertisement is for the Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing giant, well, global giant, who provides end-to-end solutions to its customers, the one and only Accenture.

I know that Accenture India sucks. Probably Accenture has its shop in India just to show their customers that they have presence in Indian market, which is the most chanted name as the offshoring and oursourcing destination. But definitely Accenture-America is not a sucker. It is so obvious that Accenture sees Infosys as a threat, while Infosys is just a 2.5 billion dollar company originated from India and still in the warming up mode to provide end-to-end solutions to its customers & trying to become a business partner.

As an Indian I am so proud that a company originated from India makes a company like Accenture feel the fear and panic enough to release such an advertisement. I was wondering what would a CEO or CIO some corporate think when he sees such an ad? I felt that this ad is a definite image booster for Infosys.

Actually Accenture is not the first one in that panic list. I think IBM was the first one to (over)react its panic. IBM story goes three years back. In 'Wall Street Journel', (just to emphasize, there wouldn't be a single CEO in US who does not read Wall Street Journel) there was a full page (or a half page - not sure of the size - but that doesn't matter really) ad which goes something like this. 'We are better than any consultancy in Banking domain'.
Irony is in American dictionary you can not find the word 'consultancy'. It clearly shows that IBM felt that TCS was a threat to its business.

For IT solutions, India should become like what China is for manufacturing unless it would be too difficult to run this 'India Story' a few years from now. I believe that research is one important area where India Inc must concentrate more to accelerate the growth and enjoy the benefits of globalization. We can not survive so long just with the low-end jobs being outsourced.

The Code (that I liked most)

Long awaited movie version of 'The Da Vinci Code' is opening on 19-May worldwide. I am eagerly waiting to watch the movie. Even thinking of (re)reading the book before watching the movie. If just the readers of this novel watch the movie at least once, the movie will be a huge box office hit. This novel is not an easy one to make it as a movie. Fulfilling millions of readers' imaginations is a real challenge. Lets see how the movie has been filmed.

This is the first time ever that I am going to see a hollywood movie that's made out of a novel, which I had already read. Generally the readers who see the movie version of novels don't appreciate the movie much. Their usual comment is that the novel was better than the movie. I guess, somehow the movie versions fail to meet the readers' expectation or imagination. God Father is one great movie & still in number one of top 100 hollywood movies made so far. I know people who claim that the novel is much better than movie. One very common thing that I never heard of is movie version being better than the novel. If you know any such movie/novel do share it with me. I would love evaluate it myself.

Standing Tall

Just 'chumma' posted my picture. This was me a year ago...what a year can do to your body is amazing.
What a year did to my body
- Put on 8 kgs weight
- Waistline gone up by 3 inches
- Flesh on cheeks look always like I have bunch of chocolates in my mouth
- Lost good amount of hair

Depressing list...I am getting old...

When I was in my teens I used to like getting older. When I was in early 20's slowly that mentality changed. Now I almost want to stop the time or want to stop getting old. Among the 100 odd people on the floor of my work place I am definitely top 10 oldest people. I am worried that my sub-ordinates start calling me uncle, like I used to tease older people.

hmmm...MBA

A colleague-friend of mine introduced his fried, who was an ISB aspirant a few years back but did not get a chance to sit on the 'hot seat' of ISB. He is working for BNP Paribas, an European bank now.

I always have a thing for MBAs and MBA aspirants. When a person says that he is thinking of pursuing an MBA or he is an MBA, my eyes go wide and balls (eyes') come a little out to watch them keenly. I observe their style, the way they present themselves, the way they talk about them & others etc. Not that I am on an evaluation kind of mode; just that I am trying to learn something. This guy I was talking about in the first two lines was an interesting person. He shared why he couldn't get through. Learning from failures is a good thing; learning from other's failures is a wise thing. So I had to probe a little to make him talk about his failure. Lets not get into all what he said for now.

According to him, one must prepare for MBA interviews like a girl prepares for a beauty contest. Virtual or real the way you answer the interviewer should be spontaneous, wearing a smile on your face and showing a good gesture. I have not watched many beauty contests but his statement reminded me of the movie Miss Congeniality. And I was able to correlate. The punch line "World Peace" is unforgettable. And the way Sandra Bullock says that on beauty pageant was sweet. (I am not a big fan of Sandra though).

I see two kinds of people a lot around me. One, who wants to pursue MBA; two, who wanted to puruse MBA. I definitely fall under one of these two categories.

What an MBA teaches people? It teaches you how to think. (I read this line sometime somewhere)

A-Rush

Today is a significant day in my life.

I have kicked off 3 new projects today with a team sized 24, my highest ever.

24 is a mix of people from 0 to 6 yrs of experience, with 0 being the major part of the pie.Above this, I am supposed to run the show with 75% of staffing. hmmm.....that's interesting.

This is going to be one of the most challenging assignments that I have undertaken.

Whenever I start off with doing something 'big' or 'new' or 'tough' or 'many-eyes-watching-it' kinda work, I would feel an
adrenaline rush in me.

Speaking of adrenaline rush, the first time I felt the A-Rush quite frequently was when I was doing my first year under grad.
That's a very nice, pleasant & embarrassing feeling to recall now. Like all normal adolescent boys in college, I also liked talking to girls. Poor me, never had experience in interacting with girls much in my school days. I used(!) to be very shy and self-conscious about talking to a girl, I think a lot about what she would think about me, if I talked to her. I used to rehearse a few times myeslf before spitting the words out. Even then I would stammer a lot. Ad-libbing? Definitely not my cup of tea. The time I start rehearsing to the time I complete with spitting it out is the A-Rush period. I am a dead meat, when it comes to conversing with girls in english. Double the rehearsals, double the stammering, double the A-Rush. But the things changed over the course of time. Remarkable improvement during the four years of my collegehood. By the time I was at my final year, I was really an expert(!) and even did pass my wisdom on to poor souls who were like me just a few years back. No more A-Rush while talking to girls. (Bad, eh?)

Do I have this adrenaline rush with my newly started assignments? Absolutely NO.
Probably this is like that 'talking-to-girls' thing. Over the course of time A-Rush got reduced and gone down to zero.

Last time I had a grrrrreat adrenaline rush was when I was standing 160 metre high on a pad just seconds before bungy jumping.
That was awesome

A sign to Despair

I read an interesting article about competency in IT industries. The point that it stresses upon is Knowledge Management (for self).
In every six months of time if your resume doesn't get added with new skills that's the sign to despair. That's a very valid point.

In 'The Economic Times' recently there was an ad, which grabbed my attention and I cut that ad and pasted it in my kiosk at work. Ad is...a big picture with a small caption under it. The big picture has 4 lions drigoing water out of a small pond with a small dog in the middle of them. The caption says 'If you think, you can'. It's an ad for 'The Economic Times' (it also says 'The Power of Knowledge' under it's name).

I actually started reading ET everyday for about 5 months now and a month ago added 'Business Line' with it. They are quite interesting dailies than 'The Hindu', which I thought as waste of money.

A few days back I was conversing with an upper management guy (who is three level above me) at my work and I was easily able to converse with him about someother corporate's results and the numbers. It was a good 15 mins conversation and I was so eloquent while our conversation touched different areas. hmm....'The Power of Knowledge'.

Yeah, about that ad pasted in my kiosk, a couple of days after pasting it one of my colleagues stopped by and asked me 'do you like lion? is that why you have pasted that ad?'. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. But didn't.

I am Back (with a bang)

I am back after a good 4 months break from Blogging.

Most of the time my job took all my time & space, so couldn't blog. Quite frequently I think or come across with something worth blogging. I really missed blogging much.

Blogging is like a whole new world.

How have I been in this period? Pretty good with lots of happenings.

I have resolved myself to blog at least once a week. Let me see how good am I in keeping the resolution.

I will be back...

Steno-Rita

Technological innovations help humans improve their productivity. (That’s so obvious, I know. I thought that’s the better way to start this blog). Lately I dreamt of some technological innovations that would aid me to improve my productivity. And my firm belief is that these innovations would definitely help many persons’ lives happy & easy. Well, I admit that they are just ‘nice-to-have’ ones. One such is here and the rest will follow:

Executives and senior management persons would require reading & responding a hundred to thousand mails everyday. Some, who can afford, has personal assistants and stenographers to help them to get this done fast. But many are struggling, slogging and juggling themselves. Whereas they could spend their valuable time in other more productive activities. Steno-Rita, the ultimate software, is dedicated to such people.

Commercial for Steno-Rita goes something like this:
Are you still in the bed, are you eating breakfast, are you travelling long hours to/fro work doesn’t matter where you are. Just call the number assigned to you. Sharp & sweet voice of Steno-Rita will read you the mails in your inbox and takes appropriate actions immediately. Want to reply? Just speak out what do you want send as reply. Steno-Rita converts your voice to letters and drafts the reply and reads back to you for you to proof-read. Literally whatever a steno can do, Steno-Rita can do. Or should I say, whatever a steno is supposed to do, Steno-Rita can do?
Just think of the amount of time you save and the productivity improvement.
Oh yeah, you don’t have to pay compensation every month and don’t have to provide healthcare for this Steno-Rita.

Should I patent Steno-Rita before anyone plagiarizes my idea?