A PORCH OF ALL SORTS

Random Thoughts

2008-05-20T05:05:00.003-04:00

Into the Wild is a biography of Chris McCandless who comes from a well-to-do family but chooses a life of tramping, he hitchhikes across US and finally walks alone into the wilderness of Alaska never to return. Thought I would share this piece from the book .

"I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, comformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Personally i don't subscribe to McCandless' principle of leading a solitary life in the confines of wild. Neither does his wilderness doctrine ring a chord with me. However i do believe that for most parts we do tend to lead a life of confirmity. I am not arguing the merits of conformity, just that we got to stop every once in a while, and do things which i believe in and are more fulfilling to me when i look back.

For all the Souls who were craving - Its finally Here ...

2008-05-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

Vodafone to Offer Apple’s iPhone in Ten Markets
06 May 2008

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

An Absolut Goof-up

2008-05-02T02:59:00.006-04:00

"In an Absolut World" is a series of print ads that invite the consumers to percieve a world that appeals to them. As part of this campaign Absolut featured this ad recently in a mexican magazine. Essentially the ad message is simple (primarily to mexican audience) "In an Absolut world, one third of US is under mexican control".

Its anybody's guess that the ad only fuels the rapidly growing seperatist movement in the US between the natives and the immigrants specially the illegal ones. Absolut claims that the ad was not politically motivated and it was truly a brand excercise at a targeted segment. Infact i wouldn't imagine that the ad had any political bent at all, however this ad has particularly received lot of flak and there are consumer groups calling for boycott on Absolut.

In all earnesty the ad must be aimed to increase Pernods Ricard's (makers of Absolut) market share in Mexico. I wonder how much of an impact has it had on its market share in US. I am just curious to know whats the net gain over all.

MOTHER OF ALL REALITY SHOWS

2007-12-07T08:32:00.000-05:00

These days you have a reality show for everything. It all started with singing, dancing, racing and dating. Catching the craze (rather cashing on the craze) our desi channels are being flooded with one to many ‘me-toos’ reality show of their American counterparts.

American Idol – Indian Idol
Dancing with the Stars – Jhalak Dikhlaja
Big Brother – Big Boss
Who wants to be a millionaire – KBC
Apprentice – Business Baazigar

The list just goes on… But here is one show that really stands out, it’s probably indigenous, I don’t remember seeing anything of this sorts on the tube so far.
I am talking about Lead India, a times group venture which aims to select a promising young leader. The winner probably gets to contest for loksabha, I still don’t know if the winner would qualify for a ticket with a major political party or times group would assist his candidature as an independent.

A reality show of this kind will nevertheless make interesting viewing. With high octane drama, heated discussion and debate it can make for a good viewing. For all its good will and intent TV shows are all about entertaining viewers. Would you imagine prime Manmohan Singhji emerge as a leader out of one of the TV shows. I doubt it. It would not be in the interest of the media company to put a visionary and still make money of it.

Its drama which sells…I have seen mediocre candidates qualify for the finale riding on popularity wave alone.You cant sometimes eliminate candidate who are public favorites. Sanjaya in America Idol is a classic case.

At the end of the day the media company has to make money. And you need people who can entertain, people who can create drama, people who can be nasty. The show itself would be clichéd if these ingredients are missing. In whose interest would the media company want to generate a leader? Besides with the sms ratings the results would be skewed with regionalism overtaking credentials. Given these circumstance I would have serious reservations on the kind leader emerging out of the show and the impact he would have on the society at large.If the show aims to realistically pull out a leader of this exercise it can only culminate as faux pas.

Not for a second I doubt the credentials of any of the contestants. They are individuals who have done extremely well in their fields; however to take center stage of Indian politics you need to have a different set of skills altogether. In India politics are feed through grass roots or political lineage. Anyway the show is off air this weekend it would be interesting to see how it fares.

On a passing note, I wish if some one can come up with parallel shows for ‘Simple Life’ – Paris and Nicole being replaced with Rakhi Sawant and Mallika Sherawat. Even better would be a desi version of ‘Flavor of Love’.

Beautiful Weather

2007-12-07T05:36:00.000-05:00

Weather is at its pristine best !!
I think that its an understatement, I don’t remember seeing something like this in ages. Apparently it’s around 15 C, but feels much much colder.

All this outside and I am sitting inside this climate regulated cubicle, my 2 dollar thermometer from Bath & Body Works reads 20 C.

KT Tunstall sings in the backdrop…

The fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's to hard to say
I wish it were simple

Thats my plight today. Totally jobless waiting for someone to drop in a mail requesting - perhaps request a document a spreadsheet or even a reply back mail. Incorrigible !! when you are busy you get loads of spasm tons of forwards…hundreds of updates on blogs to read.

All I seek is to be driving a top down convertible around the freeway, clear skies, blue sea, some beer and cold play.

Can you help me?

No stopping Federer

2007-09-17T04:05:00.000-04:00

"If life deals you lemon, go make lemonade...."

It isn't much of a surprise that Federer won the US Open without breaking
a sweat,nor the fact that he won it for the forth time taking his over all tally to 12 grandslam wins is any surprising. It's only a matter of time before Federer evens the all time record of 14 titles held by Pistol Pete.

At 26 Federer has atleast 2-3 years of competitive tennis left in him unless he decides otherwise. With no clear competition emerging he is guaranteed of atleast 6-8 grandslams in the coming years. And yes i think Nadal doesn't have the chance to break this amazing run, Djokovic is probably the only player who can come close to stopping Federer. The French ofcourse would be something elusive, Nadal or one of the obscure clay bread spanish crusader will be blocking Federer while he still come in terms with the crimson surface.

Coming back to US Open, enroute his amazing streak Federer pocketed a cool 1.4 million USD in prize money just for winning the open. Federer also went to win the US Open series - a cluster of Tier II events spread across US which finally run into the showdown at Flushing Meadows. Here Federer pocketed another million dollar, taking the total to a modest 2.4 million, this apparently is the highest prize money for a single event won by an tennis professional. Wow !!

If you think this is all, Lexus the main sponsor of the event presented a brand new Lexus IS series coupe, taking the grand total to just over 3 million dollars.

Wow ...& Wow..!!

I wonder if there has been a sports person who has ever made this kind of money in a single event. Tiger Woods ... Michael Schumi ... I honestly dont know..

Digital Camera ?

2007-05-20T09:58:00.000-04:00

I have a Canon Powershot SD400, as a basic camera it serves my purpose more or less. I am ok with the picture quality but the night shots suck big time. Even without the flash mode i get lot of haze, specially if i were to take a skyline in the night. Besides it time for an upgrade., with the basic criterion of improving the nightshots i am on lookout for a non-DSLR camera. I could almost afford to buy a DSLR like a REBEL or something but then as a photographer i am not there yet..besides i would have to invest as much on a lens - and hence i would be looking at a price range of $1000. Not now...!!

After some research i have now narrowed on two cameras.
1. Fujifilm FinePix S6000 6.3-Megapixel
2. Canon S3 IS

Having already experienced a canon i am real skeptical about S3, but i think now a days there are more S3's selling than any other in the market. The S3 has a slightly bigger zoom at 12x opti v/s finepix's 10.7x. The ISO of finepix is heads above rest hovering around 100 - 3200, while the S3 runs around 80-800. The best thing about Canon is i wouldnt need to upgrade my SD card (i already have an 1 GB SD) while finepix works on a xD card.

I am looking for a camera which gives me
* Good photographs at Low light - Decent ISO, good shutter speed
* Decent Zoom - Just enough to capture Rafa from the last stand in Cinci Master
* Fast Start ups - Dont want to loose the moment while i switch the camera & zoom
* Price - Around $300 bucks..

With this in mind could you throw some thoughts on these two cameras ?

Meetings and Taxes..

2007-05-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

Sometime back I expressed my frustration about being being excessively taxed.But to think of it...you dont pay taxes all through the year..you just realise the pain only when you are parting with dear money. So,i crib, i wine at the prospect of loosing money but not more than a month after submitting returns.

I paid returns this time but i din't do it online via taxact, a friend suggested desi accountants in US can help you save more buck by bringing lots of addendums which you dont even know. With great hope i went to this gulti tax accountant...immediately after seeing this shabbily dressed guy with a very rotound belly, i thought my odds of saving money increased significantly. I will tell u i could have hit the million that day in DEAL or NO DEAL had i participated. I was deeply contented that i have found the sage who is going to help save all my hard earned dollars.

After an hours debate..herez what i get...
Me: How about my travel expenses... I travelled to india on my expenses ..can i make any claims.
TC: You can but did you attend any training ?
Me: No
TC: Then forget it you cant make claims.
Me: I am being double tax, b'cause part of my salary is paid here
TC: Oh u see your company should issues a statement to federal govt, and the saving will be only 200 bucks..i wouldn't take that effort for 200 bucks
Me: Ok how about my city council tax
TC: Oh your county they dont allow anything of that sort
Me: I have run out of any ideas do you suggest me something ?
TC: You have one option..."Marrying"
Me: Why
TC: If you marry your tax slab would change and you get huge deductable tax receives a huge jump...so at this rate you will get a refund of 2500 dollars. (Now i owe 1000 dollars)
Me: You know what i have a better idea.. i'll go back to INDIA.

This moron not only charged me 100 dollars but preached me stuff about civic social responsibility. If you want to save money i am not the one i can send you to a guy in india who will just about do any dirty thing to save your penny. Do you want to do this or be a good citizen ? Well needless to say i became a good citizen.

Incidentally that was not why i started writing the post... i really wanted to underlie the utility of having meetings. Let me make it clear upfront - i am not saying we shouldn't be having any meetings at all. Infact if used constructively in a very structured way it is the most effective problem solving mechanism that human kind knows. For all the pros its has i suspect there are even bigger cons. Meetings can be as simple as giving status updates, trying to solve a problem, handle a crisis ...(pls note - meeting your girlfriend is out of scope of this discussion) and the list goes on...Now a days i have seen myself participating in as many as 4 meetings per day...almost daily. You might say Voila ... Finally he has arrived.

Well a lot of us are made believe attending meeting is really important and think that we have climbed that seemingly tall corporate ladder...but sorry i beg to differ here.I have had very bitter experiences with meetings, in most meeting i am usually made the scape goat. Meetings are used as protective shield from where the managers throw garbage onto your table. I am sure many of you are cornered in meeting ala me. Well people like to have meeting, talk and assign tasks to other - unfortunately i have not reached that stage where i can do this yet. So its not really enriching an experience.

One of the most important task of a manager is delegation and the most primitive management technique is assinging tasks - It amounts to finding a scape goat and assigning him a job. Getting task assigned is not bad, but expecting the assignee to work on the issues, give you constant updates, harass him - specially in matrix organization is cardinal. Between attending 4 meetings almost all running to 1 hr each. The expectation, some times unrealistic would be to resolve issues, provide updates, send out email communications in remaining available time.

Herez my list for effective meeting
Too many cooks spoil the broth
Effectiveness of a meeting is determined by the number of participants, smaller the number of participants more effective the out come.

Identify the right Stakeholder
Rght stakeholder really determines the end result, the participants should really be the key personnel towards resolving the issues, missing any party or adding substitutes by no measure helps the cause. I am pretty low in the org pyramid - i think too much of participation from senior management is a deterrent to the meeting. Unless a key decision involving huge approvals and risks it help have senior management. Management will be interested in things which really matters. Wind up summaries or abstract really help this cause.

Right Agenda
Not all things can be discussed in a single city, have an agenda, stick to the agenda.Set realistic objectives for the meeting. Prioritize the items in your agenda... you may want to start with the most critical issue and end with the most minor issue. S Just in case you run out of time it better to miss the least critical one. Ensure that the meeting is concluded in the fixed time, even if you miss couple of items.

Background\Preparation
Lack of preparation, coming to the meeting without understanding the issue really doesnt help. Its good not to attend a meeting without knowing what is expected out of you. Always expect the know be prepared for the unknown. An unprepared participant is a negative value add, he can at best help waste others time.

Duration
Based on the my experience anything between 30-60mins would be ideal. Anything over an hour is long and the participants looses interest.

Schedule
Anything in the first hour of the day helps. Having said that we work in flat world it would be very difficult to accomodate all the time zones. But as things evolve EST 8-10 is really good, i think we indians prefers call in the evening or later in the night. Pls avoid friday evening calls.

Good to have a windup mail, summarise the key points..nothing elaborate very crispy. Schedule follow-up meetings for pending tasks see through that these meetings are not prolonged. Those are my 2 cents amigos...any best practices you can think to make meeting less painful??

Of Country Music and Jazz Bars

2007-04-08T10:45:00.000-04:00

One thing about living in Cincinnati is you never make a mistake of staying in town during a long weekend. My daily routine is so mundane so boring that actually i can predict what i will do over the next month almost to a 90% accuracy, the 10% adjusted to statistical errors large due to weather. So the trick to good life is never to stay in the town over a long weekend.

This long weekend i dint want to do the usual long drives to NYC or Chicago...it was bloody cold in North with temperatures running around zero. So headed southward instead... Nashville it was..

Nashville is this very small town, with a tiny little downtown, no big skyscrappers - two main interstate and a ring road which pretty much connects the whole city. But the town is full of life.. life with filled with music, melody and fun.

Me & me amigo went to bluebird a bar suggested by lonely planet. Its a very small bar with around 20 tables available, the place is extremely crowded ppl sitting or even standing on a corners. The Bar host country musicians upcoming and established alike, primarily focusing on Accoustical accompaniments. We reached the place late and to our luck got the best seat, right in front of the musicians. We were fortunate to see an ensemble of 3 very talented guitarists, they were playing their non-cover songs one after the other...not like jugal bandi, each one better than the other each one trying to complement the other. The accoustics was of the room was just amazing...
The bar server you alcohol and doesnt have a great kitchen, but thats not what they are for. The phrase around the bar is 'Shhhh' - small notes on table give description of the artist and upcoming events in the bar. The menu also says this is not a place for conversation - if you want to have a good conversation there are plenty of option in Nashville. Talk about being rude..but it kind of puts the message across we sell music and not food.

Talking about unpleasant or rather not so welcoming punch lines... we have a chinese restaurant in Cincinnati, its like a local mess for me. The menu almost suits me perfect..i waiter knows what i exactly order .. "chicken fried rice with extra egg and some hot oil ..along with diet coke". Basically it makes my life easier i dont have to look through menu ... the taste doesnt vary ..no great surprises anywhere. But the point is the waitress around wear a T-shirt with the slogan "Shut up and eat your noodles" a rather offensive slogan to have. Specially if you have slightly sophisticated p&g clientellee visiting your place. But so far i havent seen anybody being upset about this..... Whats even more surprising is the waitress (chinese) who exactly does this...she is this no "non-sense" girl who just serves you meal and gives that "shut up and eat your noodles", this attitude might potentially be because of her limited english vocalbulary or being raised in extremely rough socio-economic terrains of northern china. That besides if i were to have a restaurant i would love to have a waiteress like this....!!

Since i already have the theme and the waiter is ready - anybody game for the restaurant ?

Some process maturity

2007-03-05T13:19:00.000-05:00

Anybody remotely associated with software industry would take this title with a pinch of salt. Ofcourse there are various metrics, methodologies, process all documented but never used. Its not as though these processes or metrics are never used, it just that the usage is generally dependent on the user. Is it really helping the developer achieve anything, how valuable is it to spend time documenting or measuring something?

Anyway process or no-process a software engineers life would be a mess without two golden ducks 'ctrl-c + ctrl-v' and 'google'. Just imagine surviving for a week without google.

Now i have a friend who works with him, who deserves tons of accolades for he has shown exemplary valour in adhering to process. The first words you would have learned in IT industry is "We have all our process in place, and as such we would not need to reinvent the wheel" what it means is try not to act smart.....just do what we say. If only chimps could you have read a document and operated windows we would have lost our jobs.

Anyway back to the story, my friend here decided that he cook upma, and as usual he sought help from one of his golden ducks. He pulled out a a website on how to prepare Upma

Here are the instructions...
1. Chop onion, garlic and ginger into small pieces.
2. Chop the remaining vegetables into cube size and boil them.
3. Heat oil on a pan and add mustard seeds. When they pop add chana dhal and urad
dhal. When they turn golden brown, add onion, ginger and garlic. When the onion
turns golden brown, add the shredded wheat.
4. Add hot water and cooked vegetables.
5. Stir continuously for 5 minutes and cover with lid and turn off the stove. Let it
cool on the remaining heat.

Now being process oriented he was, he followed all the steps sacrilegeously without missing any of the steps. He was so meticoulous that he would boil water (seperately) and add it to the shredded wheat as opposed to adding water and allowing it to boil. Remember "never reinvent the wheel" !! 30mins later the most alluring upma was ready...only glitch something was amiss... Uh ah...you guessed it right..!! There was no salt.

Trust me this is not my friends mistake the website apparently had overlooked this important ingredient. But process oriented that he is...he duly left a feedback - 'when should the salt be added ?' Accordingly this website took his feedback and the new recipe does have a line item to add salt now. I think is what CMM Level 5 maturity - continous improvement through feedback !!

Customer Service - A few Tips

2007-02-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Had a real bad day., aah rather real bad week...only positive being a short but neat trip squeezed inbetween to chicago last week. Its always nice to be back in windy city, no mater how sad the weather is - there is so much you could do in this city. A little bit of shopping, a little bit of drinking, a little bit of dining all unplanned but ending quite well. I have always noticed that these unplanned trips somehow ending pretty decent after gather a lil momentum.

Anyway here we were at a Irish pub right around Rush St, no great shakes, sober settings and mediocre music. The place could have still passed as ok in my book for the 'Stella Artois'.What made the place suck was this annoying waiter who was getting on everyones nerve there. A little bit of service is always a welcome but too many questions and too many visits to the table - you are getting overboard. This waiter for some reason would come back every second to check how we were doing, i mean a waiter checking on you is not uncommon in this part of the world. However excessive attention is just annoying. For the service or the excess of it we under tipped the waiter deliberately. I understand that a good service is tipped around 18% of the bill in chicago....usually my standard are much lower - hovers around 10% ...considering the service we got you could very well guess the tip was < 10%. Anyway the waiter came back to me with change, Sweet Revenge !!

It makes me wonder how people coming from different parts of the world cope up with tipping. culture. Tipping is a cultural thing, something like greeting - different in different parts of the world, conventionally in a country like India where services are so cheap you are not expected to tip. But most other countries you are expected to tip and tip liberally. The other day i heard a waiter at the bar counter say "he is a nice fella but a bad tipper" ... goes on to say how important it is to tip. But it makes me wonder why one has to tip seperately, why cant the tip be priced in the bill, something like a standard service charge. For one it would spare me from guessing what i must tip each time i goto the restaurant? Also how do i decide which service to tip, in general you tip at a restaurant, when you get a haircut, when you take a cab .... that almost includes the entire gamut of services i would ever need. But interestingly not for all services you are expected to tip., a few of them include airline stewards, the bank tellers, the postman. Wonder how service provided in the latter are any different from that provided in a restaurant ? So what determines a tip ??

Anyway as i had mentioned earlier, i had a bad day, stuck in a two hour meeting bombarded with rather unreasonable expectation from the customre, work that has piled on an on which made my friday longer than monday. I am breaking my head on this issue when i get a call at my desk.

Lady: Hi, is it CGX company (i am calling my client CGX)
Me: Yes !! (I work for HP, but techically speaking i work of the client premise and the phone i am using is my clients)
Lady: I have bought one of your product and i need some help with the expiry date. I cant find the expiry date and not sure if i could use it.
Me: Ma'am you have reached the wrong number could you pls check the 1-800 number on the product.
Lady: I have tried the 1-800 number but i guess its not working, could you pls get me to the concerned.
Me: Hang on ma'am

I could have chickened out in other situations, but this was goofup was of my making, i messaged sharon who had once told me she had worked for product service, with great hope that she might be able to help me out, i messaged her. Fortunately for me she was still around unfortunately she dint have the number, however she gave me the board number. Any number would be good...with great hope i gave this lady the board number hoping that they would put her to the right contact.

Now you have heard stories of how CSR's having gone to great lengths to satisfy customers. But here i am trying to helping an aggravated customer for an organisation i dont work for. Aint this super human ... is somebody from CPX reading this :-)

Aztec's Dance

2007-01-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

Aztec's dance in Coyocan

I was walking around downtown Mexico City ...with a few of my collegues to get some traditional mexican food, and happened to see this unusal dance form.

The dance, usually performed in public places - around parks, terminals or any open space, is quite interesting. I hear that - this dance originated from Aztec's who had settled in Mexico way before spanish invasion. The dance itself is performed to invovke Rain God's; If you look closely at the video ..you will find fruits at the center...which are actual offerings to the rain God. Now i also learnt that Aztecs actually offered human sacrifice as part of this ritual...wonder how Aztecs - considered one of the most advanced civilization of their era had such a blatant ritual.

To this day the dance form exists...some of the dancer actually wear traditional bells to their feet...ala our gungroo, if you are interested you are more than welcome to join the group and dance to the tunes...in about 20 mins the group had grown from a modest 10 to 30. On first thought one might pass it off as people doing this for a livelihood ... but apparently they dont do it for money...its more to keep the tradition alive... all i would say is 30 mins of dancing would be as good as any work out in a cozy gym... :-)

The quality of the video aint great...its all i could get using my cellphone...

Happy New Year

2007-01-01T11:28:00.000-05:00

The year usually begins with a resolution.....some of the more famous ones are "i will quit smoking", "i will loose couple of inches of my waistline". Most newyear resolutions are as hollow as the election manifestations of congress party . Anyway i have given up on making any types of Newyear resolutions...for i have never kept one up for as long as i remember.

But i must admit i did secretly have couple of things to-do .. one of them being skiing...
With my earlier fishing escapades being so-so unsuccessful i really didnt give it a shot this time...

Voila... i have had the most auspicious start to newyear...i have kept up a resolution which i never made and i am very happy ... Instead of the usual spirited (read spirits) way of beginning the new year ..i headed to Perfect North Slopes ...a small ski resorts up in Indiana...a good hours drive from my place..with couple of collegues.. Most of us were starters...i had two not so successful rendezvous with skiing ..in gatlinburg and rohtang earlier... which only tells that i could put on my ski boots and pose for a nice orkut picture in front of the snow dunes......

I dont know if i were being lucky since it was the third time...or was it the perfectly maintained slopes laden with the best of artifical snow that man can make ? Considering the temperature was around 45 F i wonder how they manage to gather all the snow.....as it still puzzles me how they manage to maintain the resort inspite of this season being a snow drought.
Anyway 4 hours, 5 falls, and 60 bucks later i have near perfected the art of skiing on a downhill. Though the control and braking skills still largely eludes me...i can ease through a nice gradient devoid of obstruction and come down too a swooshing halt without falling....isn't that as good as sehwag batting's ?

Anyway ...wishing you again...HAVE A ROLLICKING NEWYEAR !!

All I need is a Haircut

2006-11-15T11:31:00.000-05:00

“A Pakistani drinking an Indian Beer in Bangladesh” this was the introductory line used by one of our professor*. Till date it’s the simplest and most adept definition of globalization I have come across. This one liner conveys more or less everything which Thomas Friedman conveys in his 600 page epic. In either case the message is simple the world fast shrinking, cultures are diffusing, and old rules are rewritten at rapid pace.

Hollywood is not far in this. Watched Babel over the weekend, apart from having Brad Pitt in the most unglamorous role, the movie almost runs on the central theme of globalization. The movie itself has 4 different tales running parallel and totally disjoint only to be linked at the end. An American is shot by a Moroccan kid who uses this gun licensed under a Japanese hunter. A maid who baby sits the two kids of the American and gets entangled into a legal mess for being an illegal immigrant. How ever the storyline is quite simple, unlike Syriana where you needed a deeper understanding of oil cartels.

“Changes come at a cost. The new clientele eroded the old. There was a time when ten thousands would come to Stamford. Six thousand of them would be up for a fight. The rest came to watch a fight. Now people just want to go to the game so that they can say” – ‘Look I’m cool. I go to Chelsea.’ When I get up to sing, they say, sit down.’”

This is a quote from one of Chelsea greatest fan Alan Garrison. I don’t exactly concur with this fan, but do believe that football at Stamford Bridge is no longer played for the passion of game. A team run by an oligarch with all the money in world, the meanest manager who has an assembly line of players picked up at astronomic transfers. If someone were to make a case study for b-school studying on the topic of globalization, Chelsea would be the club to pick. I am not sure if they have anyone except for John Terry from within the England representing the club.

The week has been an overdose of globalisation. Here is the story that put me thinking…..
I make a reservation; go to the saloon 10 minutes prior to the appointment only to be told about this 20 minute wait. Finally when I get on to the seat, I am bombarded with these crazy options, clipper or scissors, straight or blended, short or medium, shampoo or cream? I felt like I am going through this expert system designed to give the near perfect solution. Guess what I got…a Baby Cut (That’s how Paula explained my cut).
So, I spent close to an hour, went through this rubic’s cube, pay 15 dollars to get a baby cut. How I wish I could outsource this, technology please help bridge this. Perhaps my neighborhood haircut uncle can do a video conf and explain this stylist how to go about the simple task without asking too many questions?? Is NRN listening..there seems to be an oportunity for outsourcing...

*prof happens to be shyamal roy who teaches economics at iimb and is the best in business.

Man and the Dog

2006-10-31T15:13:00.000-05:00

Infrastructure Support and Services is a big business these days. No company wants the headache of running and managing servers when its not core to their business. You need specialists to mantain, upgrade and manage your servers.

HP perhaps is the best in business when it comes to servers and storage solutions. The way in which they support infrastructure is quite interesting too. Not preffering to having servers across various client locations, they move the customers infrastructure to their own hubs called as Data Centers. These Data Centers are essentially centralised platforms from where infrastructure of various clients are hoisted. The idea of the Data Centers is to manage multiple customers from a single location - economies of scale. A new concept that would evolve out of this the shared services model (hoisting different customers on same server). Which means a 200GB server could be utilised by 3 customers at the cost of one. Interesting concept i think, how far it can be achieved is debatable though.

Whats more interesting though is the fact that the datacenters work on a very thin workforce. I am told that going forward - all you need to manage a Data Center is a Man and a Dog.
A dog to keep people away from messing with the servers and a Man to feed the Dog. This level of automation seems quite scary !!
But believe me we are not far from there.

Caffeine,Cocaine and Coffee Talk

2006-10-29T20:39:00.000-05:00

Coffee has always been my favorite drink, starting the day with a cup of coffee…I would have guzzled atleast a couple of rounds before dusk. Ever since the shepard who discovered arabicas some where in the deserts (was it brazil?) coffees popularity has reached far and wide...thanks to Star Bucks.

I don’t know whether it is the taste of coffee or the caffeine which keeps us going on and on. I remember when this little café coffee day outlet opened in our campus…it was kind of pseud to have a cup of branded coffee besides you on the desk. Before café coffee days advent we were accustomed to the more subtle tea in plastic cups tea from our coffee shop just around the corner of library or the mess. Here in Cincinnati especially within P&G premises I find innovative usage of coffee. Firstly coffee breaks can be used as an alibi to get out of your seat on slightest pretext. All you do is wait for someone to message you for coffee and you would reply back…I am kinda busy but a cup of coffee would do a lot good. It’s almost as if a coffee would help you fix a code you have been struggling for a week. Secondly all those arduous hours in the office can’t be spent browsing and orkuting alone – you need a break. A more innovative usage is to use coffee in the meetings. Hardly have I seen a meeting without majority of the people carrying a cup of coffee. Apart from acting as a stimulant – which perhaps keep you awake all through the meeting while you are trying out those new pencil sketches. It also brings the sense of seriousness, more like – yeah this guy means business. For instance if the client ask you a question – and you are absolutely clueless…and you just need that additional 1/100th of a second to think and throw some serious jargon…all you need to do is just lift the cup of coffee as if your throat needs to be bribed for your brain to think. In this nanoeth second you would have probably arrived at some answer which would save your day. And yeah having to work in Cincinnati I don’t have access to very many star bucks and I am forced to go for Millstones or Folgers (P&G brands). I don’t consider either of them to be anywhere close to the Bru instants but still it more than makes up with the pseudness coefficient. So my recipe for a successful meeting is a Tall Regular Coffee with lid, a straw to sip and not to forget a pencil along with a scrap book.

Talking of caffeine, Redux Beverages in Las Vegas is offering a new energy drink branded as ‘Cocaine’. It calls the drink a "legal alternative" to the illegal drug in form of an energy drink, hmm..why not?. With a catchy name like this and 5 times the strength of ‘Red Bull’ I am sure that it would do good rounds of business. The drink actually doesn’t have any coke in it, it’s just the excess cocaine which apparently gives that numb sensation of its name sake. Now that’s one hell of a reason for many of us to try it. It’s a different issues that it has the drink itself has run into problems with the conservatives calling it too inappropriate a name. I am not sure how coco-cola manages to survives under the nemesis of coke. Isn’t it the more colloquial name of cocaine or was it cocaine which took the name coke from coco-cola?

Finally working in HP Americas has its own positives, one of them being the ‘Coffee Talks’. Coffee Talks within HP are held at various locations within US and graced by the biggies of HP; two of the more prolific Coffee Talks that I have attended were hosted by Mark Hurd (CEO), and the other by Carly Fiorina (erstwhile CEO). Now ‘Coffee Talks’ are also webcasted for the benefit of larger audience within world wide HP. Due to differences in time zone and pure laziness I never used to attend these talks. Ever since I am here I hardly have missed any of these ‘Coffee Talks’. Apart from getting to interact with the gurus of Silicon Valley you get to know the quarterly results, strategy over the next quarter and occasionally my bonus.
Now you might ask me what the heck, its some thing which is done across many organizations and just that HP calls it ‘Tea Talk’ instead of ‘Coffee Talk’. If it were an Infosys they would come up more innovative name like ‘Namma Filter Coffee Talk’ or a ‘4G Coffee Talk’. Hang on here is the interesting part; I was always under the impression that I would be served coffee & cookies to-go since the program itself is called ‘Coffee Talk’. After being a veteran of two Coffee Talks – it stuck me that the term ‘Coffee Talk’ is actually a misnomer - for there ain’t no coffee being served (On, before or after the talk). On the third occasion, I did a little bit of investigation while in the auditorium and results were no different. No coffee served again. It needed a much closer observation to figure – that the meetings are usually conducted in the noon (around 2pm) and most people in the audience carried their own cup of Folgers. Voila Code cracked.

The Alchemist - Featuring Bops

2006-10-17T19:50:00.000-04:00

We formed quite a trio, me bops and my ‘other buddy’. I am not dwelling into the details of my ‘other buddy’ - one feature is too little to talk about his escapades. Besides he is too busy running a big consulting firm from some where in Hong Kong or Macau.

There were two things common to the three of us,

One - like most boys from South (I mean South of Bangalore) we had never been North (beyond White Field) of the country.

The other – none of us fancied an IT job. I ofcourse crib and do nothing about it. But Bops wasn’t the one who would sit around whine about it and do nothing. After a not so convincing stint at an IT company, he left for an MBA. Come summers Bops finds himself in the same company where he is used to work earlier (call it destiny). Still Bops held his convictions of breaking away from the mundane world of IT. Finally he left many a cushy offers from IT companies, the lure of green bills and lost frequent flier miles. Bops made it to Airtel, with it came a trip to Delhi…farthest North he had been all life.

Like I said - Bops followed his dreams …. Yours truly and the ‘other buddy’ will always be proud of this. There are very few people that I have come across who have the courage to follow their dream. You need some nerve to do it, don’t you ?

For all his positives bops has some shades of grey, he is an ardent follower of Hindutva (the sena kind). Since his early childhood he had developed this strange animosity towards fellow Muslims. So much so that he had a grid on which he could scale his animosity. To give you an idea he had enemies at various levels

National Level – Pakistan Bangladesh and rest of the middle east
State Level – TN, KL, WB (and the list goes most states in India minus KA)

Bops is currently headed to Murshidabad for a sales stint, his attitude to walk the talk has now landed him 20 miles away from the border. When Bops called me early today to tell me he was off to murshidabad, my first question was – Is this in Bangladesh?

A little research on Murshidabad* tells me that the place is geographically proximate to Bangladesh. A district with a population of 5.8 million, which is classified as a muslim majority (64% muslims) within West Bengal. An urban population of less than 11%, so effectively we have 638,000 potential customers who would be demographically targeted by Airtel . Bops effectively has around 229000 as his customer base (his strong religious convictions forbid him from selling connections to Muslims). Add to this Hutch is the dominant player around, which leaves bops with less than 100000 subscribers.

Bops faces the biggest challenge of his life – whether to follow his dreams or to break his strong religious convictions. I don’t have any answers to his dilemma for I know - not only he pursued his dreams but also pursued his boss to give him a challenging assignment in sales. I mean what can be more challenging than selling a Refrigerator to an Eskimo. Kudos Bops, I am proud of you. If you ever need a bigger challenge – you should probably try selling Hair Oil in PoK.

I only hope that you don’t come back with a Begum Khalida Zia…For the last time i wished*** something you kicked my butt whenever Kapil Dev was on TV telling "Palmolive ka jawab nahi"

Good Luck Dude!!

*38.5% growing muslim population base making it the fastest growing district as far as muslim growth is considered, i am told the degenerating population growth in Bangladesh is attributed to a generous murshidabad

* * I am making this assumption that Airtel would being a premium brand would restrict its market segment to urban murshidabad

***This one is a little secret between the two of us, sorry strictly confidential.

Bombay Blues

2006-10-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

Here is a nice post by guy kawasaki on his first impression about India more specifically Mumbai.

Dont forget to check pics, some of them are really good. For the iimb junta - look out for chachi in one of the pics (i think its her).

Rajni makes it to the wild west

2006-10-01T12:08:00.000-04:00

Rajni with his impeccable style has swept audience across japan, Singapore and most parts of east asia. So far he had not quite made it big in the west. Not now, this video has been making rounds on the web and some TV channels in the US.

Vh1 says 'well this is the kind of video that should been seen for a good laughter. But at the same time this is the video that you would not want your kids to stay away from'. What ever the channel has to say Rajni has made it to the west, in this case with some help from little superstar.

Co-Branding, Viral Marketing and Brand Associations

2006-09-29T16:58:00.000-04:00

Swashbuckling, living life on the edge, drunk, adventurous, lawless renegade – Given this choices would anybody guess I am talking about the Disney or even Volvo for that matter. First thing that comes to my mind would be when I think Volvo has to be ‘Safety’. Volvo has spent years and years to build the philosophy of Safety. No brand of car has been able to dislodge ‘safety’ from consumer’s mindshare. Same is the case with Disney – it’s about fun, family and whole hearted entertainment.

Now past summer Disney and Volvo have done the unpredictable by creating this viral marketing campaign. Volvo has created a treasure hunt where an SUV was buried and a treasure map published to pull out the hidden treasure (an SUV). Disney has similarly created a theme ride based on Pirates of Carribean. Both of the campaigns have been hugely successful, considering they actually contradict what the brand stands for. I guess the only explanation I can think of is ‘FAD’. Pepsi has launched a new site bluebillion.com with an idea to unite the fans across world and ride on similar fad.

Movies have always been preferred avenues to advertise products, be part of fad especially if it’s an expected block buster. Recently World Space used this medium to good affect by being part of the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai. World Space must have hit the jackpot in reaching its target audience*. A limited dosage or sublimal messages can do wonders to brands when advertised within movies.

Although the cues seem to be quite contrasting from the core values of the brand. It does turn out to be a good campaign for the product (read increased sales). Associations like this just remain intact during the phase of the fad and whither down as time goes. If the brand does well and pushes the sales during this phase why not ride the wave?

*A small glitch however was that most of the target audience in Lage Raho including Munnabhai are hooked to a Radio Transceiver whose receiver might very well miss out the waves bouncing off the satellites.

KARNATAKA’S DREAM RUN

2006-09-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

Many Worlds, One Bangalore

Reads the two page Advertisement in Wall Street Journal this last Wednesday. As one could have expected the majority of the space is used to showcase IT and BT exports. Also the ad tries to focus on areas like Tourism, Textile and other Smaller Industries.

It’s refreshing to see that a coalition government involved in its own petty politics and mud slinging still managed time for a forward looking initiative. The Advertisement talks about Bangalore being the IT hub with $8 billion software exports for 2005-06 accounting for 38% of software exports in the country. Ad also tries to gain some mileage for Bangalore being the global headquarter of Infosys, and NRN leading the State’s IT vision group.

The section on tourism I think was pretty neat, the initiative to group 116 tourist destination into 11 circuits based on varied themes was innovative. So instead of tourists picking random places they can pick a theme based on tour. Themes include ‘Songs in Stone’ – Hampi, Aihole and Pattadakal. ‘Leisure City’ – Bangalore with emphasis on parks …. Poooh…. I would rather focus on the Pubs and Eat-Outs in Bangalore than parks for relaxation and winding.

One initiative that has been quite acclaimed and been seemingly profitable is the ‘Stay at Home’ initiative – The concept was introduced during Dasara, where tourists get to stay in Homes, just like you staying in a relatives or friends place. It is an enriching experience for a foreigner to visit kodagu (coorg) and be part of a wedding, food and booze. This initiative has a catchy phrase too. ‘The feel of a five star in Paris and London is the same; but a home stay in Kodugu village is unique’. I quite agree with this and full marks for Karnataka Tourism to have envisaged the concept.

Final Words: Although the initiative itself is laudable, the focus some how still remains on Bangalore which already is bludgeoned and cant take any more. There is no point mentioning Mysore, Mangalore and Hubli as alternate venues for investment - if there ain’t any infrastructure to back this. Infrastructure in Bangalore and rest of the state is all but pathetic. The completion of International Airport and good roads, better Traffic management would be pivotal for growth in the State. Creating pull alone is enough – you need to have the right environment for those investments to keep invested.

Ps: Oh did I mention Kummaranna and Yediyurappa were spotted in the centre spread..!!

Take a power nap

2006-09-22T09:40:00.000-04:00

Here is something which I strongly believe and for once have research backing.

According to the New Scientist, a research carried out by boffins from the City University of New York in the US has found that napping boosts memory, making it easier to recall important facts, reports the Daily Mail.
The study lead by Dr Matthew Tucker, said that though 'power napping' was thought to be "counterproductive in environments requiring mental acuity and substantial memory capacity", the results had shown otherwise.

A 20 min nap in the afternoon would definitely help getting back to work, especially after a hectic first half. Usually the later half tends to be boring and I would prefer to attend meetings or do things which are trivial. I believe the Japanese have a scheduled break for an hour every afternoon. But again I don’t work 12 hours a day, i dont need a bunker to sleep nevertheless could use those 40 winks in my cubicle.

End of an Era

2006-09-10T12:25:00.000-04:00

With the win in Monza, Schumi has confirmed his retirement from the world of Motor Sports. So does an end come to one of the most successful runs in Formula 1. For records schumi has won the drivers title 7 times. He has an outstanding record of 90 wins, 153 podium finishes to his credit. Such has been his dominance that there aren’t many records which are not under his name.

Its hard to predict how motor sport will shape after his exit. As some one quoted, “what will happen to Tour De France once Lance Quits? – Ans: It will be a race again”. Formula 1 will probably be more competitive again or I might turn out to be totally one sided affairs dominated by an Alonso or Kimi or Kubica ?

I have always sided with the under dogs, and its no secret that I no great fan of Schumi either. For some reason I have always sided the under dogs. For I believe it’s the under dogs who make the sports likeable. They are the ones who bring the element of unpredictability which is makes sports affable. I like the likes of Safin or Nadal who on their day can wave the sternest of challenges with ease . Sport would become boring if one person were to reign supreme, Fedrerer, Sampras, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong all great champions, no technical flaws and they have almost achieved perfection. But what good is it to watch a match where you know the result before you switch on the TV.

It would be perhaps the first time in 6 years since I started following F1, I would want Schumi to win the Drivers. I think with only 2 points separating him and Alonso, there is a greater chance that Schumi will pull it off. I have the faintest of doubts that Schumi will put his heart and soul to end on his career on a successful note.

All I can say that the year 2006 has been the year of retirements. Zidane, Agassi, Navratilova, Davenport and now Schumi. None of greats till now have been able to exit on a victorious note. I am hoping Schumi could break this jinx and retire with the driver title. That should be the most befitting present to a great champion.

Of Taxes & Dating

2006-09-05T15:27:00.000-04:00

I received a mail from city of silverton (my humble abode). The letter read something like this…

“ Our records find that you have been in City of Silverton since Oct 2005, and you have not filed your city taxes. Failure to pay the returns by mm/dd/yyyy will attract penalties. Taxes are set at 1.25% of you annual income. Please reach us ASAP at this address”.

I found this letter particularly annoying considering I had already paid Cincinnati taxes (2% of my annual income). I always thought Silverton is a municipal within Cincinnati, why this taxes within taxes?
Secondly, Silverton is levying taxes for living in the neighborhood, I can concur with them if there were a fixed slab say $30 per month towards garbage collection, road maintenance, fire and other civic amenities including managing parks etc (most of which I don’t use). The question lingers..why a person’s salary should determine the taxes - specially when you are being taxed for a service ? Can somebody explain the differential in taxes to avail same service? Cost of service I always believed was determined by the market and not by what the user is willing to pay? Do we pay different rates for services like hair cuts…I don’t think we do ?

I had only moved Nov 2005 and not Oct 2005, so armed with my lease agreement I went to the office assuming I will end up paying for two months which would roughly be around 60 bucks (tops). The lady at the counter calculated my tax to 300 bucks. Stunned I said ma’am there must have been a mistake I was here in silverton since october and I guess my taxes would be in the range of 60-70 bucks. She gave a detailed calculation.
Taxes for 2005 @ 1.25% $60
Late fee $50 (late by a month, pls note my taxes are close to penalty)
Pro-rated tax for 2006 $230
A grand total of $340
Evidently the $230 is for next year (2006) and the lady had calculated the pro-rata on a half-yearly salary (based on W2 form). Not ready for this jutka I politely asked ma’am can I pay the taxes for 2006 next year? The lady who was very polite till then was even more polite in responding…’sire you have to pay your taxes in advance, that’s the rule’.
Me being smart (that I am) asked her.. ‘but what if my annual earning are higher than last year?’ The lady was even polite in answering … ‘your estimate can be off by 10%, so your prediction should be accurate otherwise you’ll be penalized’. By then I had noticed that the lady’s vocabulary revolved primarily around penalties, arrest, warrant, violation. However polite she sounded she always communicated this message clear and crystal - ’boss pay your taxes or end up in jail’.

By this time I had a big frown in my face, I asked her is there anything that you don’t tax? So far I have paid Social Security taxes, State Tax, Federal Tax…service tax and a host of other taxes which even our Finance Minister wouldn’t have thought about. The lady across the counter was spontaneous in responding – There are very few things that aren’t taxed … eg. Essentials (which classify as food), water and air fall under this category.

Voila… only three things? Two of them are already make it to endangered species list prepared by Mr. Inconvenient Truth. At the pace this man is going within 10 years water and air would be taxed. I guarantee you that…
Mr.Gore has problems comprehending simple facts. I think his arguments on glacial melt down in Greenland, Patagonia are not justified. Give me a break, you can’t show me black and white pictures taken 25 years back, and prove a climate catastrophe? Can’t you understand glaciers look different when seen black and white?

Sorry for divulging, but the lady at the counter sensing that I was withholding something asked me what would your salary be? Pls declare it upfront. So I said fine, here is my salary – she calculated the net tax which came to double what she had calculated before I was being smart. I am so so…frustrated….someone rightly said…’I could live without two things…Taxes & Meeting’. Having no other-go ..i shelved the dollars…owing to return back to home at least to save taxes.

Now the polite lady at the counter had some advice for me…when you get into a neighborhood young man you have to talk to people about the ‘TO-DO’ things. I said …. Ma’am I come from a third world country where we only evade taxes and to top it I don’t know anyone here. The moment I told this the lady was curious to know my where abouts, what I do (socially)?. I guess it’s written all over my face that I survive weekends on a heavy dosage of rented movies from Blockbuster. Sensing the imminent question I said….well I prefer to stay home. The lady was now amused … till now I had heard ‘all about taxing’ now…the topic turns to ..’all about dating’. After imparting some tips on dating, I have been given an assignment. Not only do I have to pay taxes, but I have to have some solid story to tell her coming october!!
If paying taxes weren’t hard enough I now have an assignment to go with it..too….
High time I change neighborhood.

Post Purchase Dissonance – Software Applications

2006-08-23T17:01:00.000-04:00

A Google search did not yield a good result to the above topic. Hence I am trying to understand plausible causes for post purchase dissonance in software products. The approach is very simple - try and retrofit the cognitive dissonance theory to software products.

The Case:
Company X uses Siebel (CRM Application Suite) in several of its business units for various applications ranging from catalogue listing to retail execution to call-center operations to sales force management. Company X was not entirely satisfied with the product they were using. There has been a spate of pull back from different units. Usual turn around time before calling off an application ranged between 12-18 months. After investing significant Time and Money Company X pulled out of their usage.

Why do companies choose a certain technology and again why do they forfeit the usage after millions of dollars are invested? Is there anything that can be done to reduce the post purchase dissonance?

Reason 1: Very High cost structure making extremely unattractive for smaller business units.
Cost Structure for Enterprise Software like Siebel
Is the kind of investment justified? The answer is clearly a NO. A roll out in one unit or just one application can never justify such a huge investment. Also it is should be accepted that the first two years of investment can never pull a great ROI. There is certain gestation period companies should be ready to invest.

Reason 2: Availability of alternate attractive solutions at lower cost.
Good alternatives like the Salesforce.com (A web-hosted application) - charges around $900 per annum per user. Its fair to say that Salesforce,com is the fastest growing company in the CRM space adding marquee customers at rapid pace. At this point I would not be able to comment on the flexibility it offers in terms of product feature or functionality. However the package looks very attractive for mid-size companies (size of 500-1500 users).
Close on its heal is Sugar CRM which is an open source application, which offers the basic package for somewhere around $100 per user per annum. Additional features would cost more.

Reason 3: Business Process v/s Software Flexibility
An enterprise application will be built on certain industry standards; however the business processes of each organization would vary and can never be frozen into a template. Unusually Decision Makers start with the assumption that they would be able to make minor modifications to their existing business processes and adapt to newer software process definition. But as time progresses the theory degenerate, everyone wants the software to work in the manner they are used to. Although Siebel offers the flexibility to tweak, every tweak will have a negative impact on the performance. With poor performance comes growing dissonance.

Reason 4: Product Defects & Bugs
Bugs in software products are as old as the history of the software products. When newer industry verticals are being explored – with no known standards available we are in trouble. Siebel has some very good off-the-shelf solutions but in cases where there are none they co-work with the industry leader to develop newer solutions. In difficult terrains like these product bugs can’t be totally over-ruled.

Reason 5: Expectancy Disconformance
There is a pre-purchase expectation which is evaluated against the actual performance. Often there is a mismatch with what the business expects and what the software delivers. Also there might be a mismatch of what is promised and what is delivered. When the product fails to meet certain expectation there is a growing dissonance.

Reason 7: End user Adoption
A software product unlike others will need some level of sophistication when it comes to the usage. User adoption is the biggest problem when it comes to failure of software products. Complex software, hardware, PDA, Handhelds and black berry’s are being used to facilitate business. Increase in number of gadgets doesn’t necessarily turn into improved business. With addition of each new device we are asking the users to learn something new. If the users have never been exposed to systems or were using paper earlier it will be extremely difficult to win them to use the application.

Reason 8: Etc Etc…
An enterprise application is often run by 3 or 4 vendors; it is difficult to orchestrate a perfect symphony when so many parties are involved. For instance we have a software vendor, an application service provider (who configures it), and another service provider (maintaining it). Add to this a vendor supplying hard ware.
If this conducting an orchestra wasn’t tough enough..now we are asking an elephant to dance along with the orchestra!

Each of the above reason would in some parts building up the dissonance. Firstly it’s aired by frustrated users who would find it extremely difficult to perform their routine tasks. Every minute that a user spends trying to understand the system, trying to get the system work means that he is taking away time from what he has to do (his core job gets affected – try telling a sales guy give me 1 hr and I will fix your problem). So a system which was meant to facilitate his work has resulted in additional effort on his part.

Similarly when the system cannot perform in a certain way or the user has to tweak his process he is relearning things which he had learnt over years. This attributes to disconfirmation. Any deviation from what from an expected behavior will lead to dissatisfaction.

Dissatisfaction leads to product being dropped, bad word of mouth and potential legal actions. An enterprise package which doesn’t exactly fit into a volume business will definitely have a tough task in claiming back the tainted imagery.

Are there any answers??
If it were a traditional product like a TV or battery, the product manufacture could have at least the option of calling back his product. Classic cases are Chrysler calling back it Durango’s when it was identified that the wheels would roll-off at high speeds. Even though it costed quite a fortune of Chrysler to call each one of these Durango’s for an inspection and fixing the ones which could have potentially fell off the hook.

Or very recently Dell+Sony combo having to call all the Li-Ion batteries for certain laptop which apparently had the propensity to catch fire. The sample size was 4 laptops out of 4 million? But still Dell went ahead with the damage control calling back the entire shipment … one way to reduce the damage to brand imagery.

Unfortunately software products don’t have this luxury; if lucky they might get one last chance to fix all the loopholes.

Sometime back I had read how important design phase is in software life cycle. I guess we go back to the same place to fix these problems. Get your requirements right, deliver what is promised and what is required. Use your learning from one deployment to other. Don’t repeat the same mistake again. And above all keep your product simple. Cause you may not get a second chance post-purchase.

***Disclaimer:All the views discussed above are mine, and do not reflect any company or individual thoughts. Siebel and Salesforce.com have been taken as examples and similar instance can be found in other enterprise applications.

Why does this always happen to me ???

2006-08-06T23:55:00.000-04:00

It would have been a rather eventful weekend; Few of my colleagues joined together this weekend for a get away to Little Miami River. It was a nice and sunny, no scorching heat, cool breeze in the woods, just about perfect for an outdoor activity like canoeing.

The stream was very shallow - almost like back waters in Kerala. We rented canoe and set out on a downstream journey of about 6 miles. I paired with a mallu friend of mine, thought it was a safe bet considering. I hadn’t done any serious canoeing for as far as I could remember. A couple of laps and I figured - our mans rowing skills were as good as his mallu flavored accent.

The first mile took more than an hour with breaks to get the canoe on track and breaks to guzzle some bud light. Trust me there is nothing like sitting in a canoe and sipping beer on a nice sunny day. All seemed well until we bumped into these gentlemen who seemed to be in a slight inebriated state.

I guess one of the gentlemen wanted to have a crack us at or was he actually on crack? I am not sure what he was on but from nowhere he turned our canoe upside down. All of a sudden I found myself stuck underneath the very canoe where I was sipping beer seconds ago. I managed to swim back only to be all drenched, wouldn’t have bothered if it were only me that was wet…drenched with me was my digicam. And the guy says he was just having fun., his few seconds of fun cost me quite a fortune. The mallu warrior with me lost his rayban. And another friend of mine lost his Palm PDA. Talk about collateral damage.

What was supposed to be a calm, serene get away turned into a big big tragedy. Thanks to a few drunken orangutans. In retrospect, I think, I should have been smart enough to drop my camera in the car. But again I wouldn’t have been pissed if I had lost the digicam due to my own negligence.

And yeah pls dont ask me why i haven't posted any pics…

One Full Year

2006-08-02T00:36:00.000-04:00

It’s been exactly one year since I have landed in Cincinnati, which also means that its been an year since I have been home.

Things I miss

Booze @ Tavern grub at Imperial/Rolls at Fanoos (Zaks special with kaboos at zaks cant be missed either)
Idly at SLV, Dosa at Vidyarthi Bhavan
Free reading at Oxford laced with a quiche at Cha Bar (Barnes and Noble doesn’t come anywhere close)
Fortnightly doze of Formula 1 and weekly doze of EPL
Shereen Bhan, Maneka Dua and party (Rajdeep Sardesai too considering how annoying he can get - 'Do you believe it could have been done in this way Mr.Yadav')
Meghana Naidu and all the item girls
The Wall – Boy did I miss the most eventful period where Dravid grew in stature as a batsmen and a captain
Papa Pandu* – Did find a replacement in Everybody Loves Raymond
Boys at Bangalore

Things I would rather miss

Traffic, Traffic and more Traffic
Humble but ever so lost for words of Kumaranna

Verdict, things I miss far out number things I would rather miss…I guess its time I head back home…a break would indeed be good…but summers not bad either!

* A popular Kannada Sitcom

The First One

2006-07-27T22:10:00.000-04:00

After lil bit of contemplation and lots of deliberation i have finally gotten over my laziness and VOILA here i have my own blog...!!

Factors which contributed towards embarking such an ardous sojourn are below..
1. A friend of mine in Beijing - (still got to post on his blog)
2. An unusually free last couple of weeks
3. Summer in Cincinnati
4. My buddy Dips - Not that you had any say but still doesnt hurt giving a lil credit

Now the easier part is done...moving on to the tougher part ... What do i write?

Fortunately there are quite a few things i have been doing and thinking over the weekends. Let me start with the recently concluded WTA Masters tour. The weather was just perfect for tennis and the prospect of seeing 18 teen something Russian women was as good an alibi to leave the office a wee earlier than usual. Ofcourse our own Sania Mirza who reached as far as Quarters in Singles and ended up runners-up in Doubles was the icing on the cake.

Looking at the crowd i could figure many desis who would not have watched a tennis match were there to witness the girl from Hyderabad hit those hard flat forehand down the line. Unfortunately she seemed to hit a tough opponent in Patty Schynder the world no. 11 and defending champion. It was the first time i was seeing Sania play in flesh and blood and honestly didn't expect her to win more than a couple of games. However i was totally taken aback by the show that Sania put up.

For one i must admit she has got a very powerful ground stroke perhaps equalled only by the more muscular (or is it masculine?) Williams' and Mauresmo's of the world. She has a equally balanced backhand and a nice temperment. To think of the fact that patty tried to change her game and get as much spin and bounce on the ball showed clearly that she wanted Sania to hit less of those almost unreacheable forehand punches. Sania lost in 3 sets however i was happy for the fact that Patty dint win it on her merits ... if Sania lost the quarters it was due to her own inconsistency than Patty's brilliance.

Things Sania might want to work on ... Serve, Steam, Consistency

The doubles was not as good as the singles except that i got to see Gisela Dulko (Arg) & Elena Camerin (Italy)....awesome pair they make, i rate them as the best looking doubles pair on the tour. Not all the matches made an interesting sight, don't know if it was due to lack of top 20 players or overall quality of womens tennis ?

With lots of women stars voicing their claim for an equal stake at the prize money, specially Maria Sharapova at wimbledon (as if its not enough that i bear her grunts), i am skeptical whether womens tennis can generate and sustain same level of interest as that of mens.
Most of the matches were one sided including the final where Vera Zvonareva had a 6-2 6-3 walk over Srebotnik. From what i have seen the gap between a top 20 player and player ranked 50 was like Rohan Bopanna playing Andre Agassi... (now lets not talk about Roger Fedrerer, mens tennis is competitive if we remove this man) The question is do womens deserve the same kind of prize money as men's ? Can they hold the audience interest in their game with existing level of competition ?

Final thoughts, failed to understand why desis were screaming "Come On Sania" or "Wah Sania" while the game was on.....are we so deprieved of sportsmen of repute that we should be so vociferous? or do we try to bring the same atmosphere as in a cricket ground no matter where an india sportsmen play ?