I PUBLISH, THEREFORE I AM

Superb one hour talk by Swami Parthasarthy , the unique thing about this talk was that the speaker told the audience that his talk was not for their age group, instead, he was expecting their kids to come and make use of this talk. Of course, he knew kids don't come to talks hosted by a "Swami"; it's the mid-60 oldies who come to his talks (and a few like me), so he earnestly told everyone to go and share his points with kids in 15-35 age group, the age group that is in business, that has the whole of adulthood left. The topic of the talk was " Renunciation in Action ", the point he made was really enlightening, we don't give up anything, actually, we cannot give up anything, we can only take up something better . You don't give up the toys you loved, you just take up a better toy, a bicycle. You don't give up your bicycle, you just take up a better toy, computers. You don't give up smoking and drinking, you just take up a better sport,...

So, everyday I open my Google Reader or see my news feeds, I see articles and videos on "How was Steve Jobs different from other leaders", "How to be like Steve Jobs", "How did Steve Jobs run Apple", "Steve Jobs' secret strategies", "What customers are to Steve Jobs", "Why do we still need Steve Jobs"...blah blah blah I wonder, now that Steve Jobs (the MAN himself) has kinda retired, he might find some time to catch up with all these articles...what if, he reads all this and thinks to himself " What!!! these guys write about me like they know me...and some of them are sharing their stupid wisdom as something that I advocated "...Also, he might think " I was just doing my job, what is this management style, customer relationship, innovation, entrepreneurship, wisdom, and all that crap " :-). I really really really like Steve Jobs, and no doubt, he is a master-piece, but it gets really difficult to tr...

Dunbar's number makes total sense. Do you know what that is, if not see this . It is something to do with the number of friends you have on Facebook (not exactly Facebook, but it kinda targets Facebook). I think that the number of friends I follow and who I get influenced by, on Facebook, is around 10-12 friends. Although, I have around 500 friends on Facebook, I don't really know 'How come?'. Sometimes it just gets difficult to figure out where did I meet that guy/girl who is a friend on Facebook. To top it all, I have pretty girls as my Facebook friends ...I have no idea what are pretty girls doing in my friends list, I don't remember seeing so many pretty girls in real life. (Either, the girls started using Photoshop, or they mistook me for Brad Pitt :)...whatever) Some of the friends on Facebook are those you saw in the park or in an event. It is good to connect and build your network, but the network effect is not helpful if the network is freakish...

I never used to remember the poems and the freaking one paragraph answers at school, is it because I was not interested, may be, but at least not always. On the other hand, when I used to listen to Metallica and Black Sabbath around 10 times, and then sing along with the song lyric, I used to remember it, actually I still remember it. I sense the way you teach kids (especially, kids like me) isn’t working. There has got to be a better way to memorize things. My point is, I don’t have any problems with learning, instead you have problems with the way you are explaining . PS : Also, Metallica writes amazing lyrics, they are like poems ;).

This is just blowing my mind. If you conduct a 15 minute status meeting every day, and if you have 10 attendees to that meeting, then the meeting just costs you 15 minutes of your day, but to your manager/company, it costs 15 minutes * 10 = 150 minutes (+ 30 minutes for all of them to get back to work). That is 3 hours. Now, you decide if you have a product release going tomorrow, and have lots of work pending, do you want to spend 3 hours getting work done or do you want your team to give status. PS : Just a thought, I can wrong. The point isn’t about spending  15 minute in a meeting, the point is how much does it cost your company , beware of that.

Have you heard about Knowledge broking – sounds geeky, but it ain’t. All it says that “If you are trying to solve a problem, look at the solutions that already exist, instead of actually trying to solve it”. It’s not another philosophy that is going to bore you, it’s not a framework full of rules and regulation, it’s basically a team sport that all of us can use. You will have guys in your companies who have lots of experience and lots of contacts, these guys are the key to finding a solution to a problem at hand. Ask them about what their friends are doing in other companies, call them, message them, and then ask if they can help you. NOTE : You are not sharing any intellectual property (IP), and your friends are not sharing any intellectual property. So, don’t worry about IP issues. You are not inventing anything, you are just sharing an existing idea that is already public. Change required: -           Intelligence experimentation...

If no one said it, is it worth saying it? that’s the question you need to ask yourself when you write a blog post or a message on your FB wall. Personally, I think all of us are looking for an original idea, we don’t want to copy stuff that is online and post it on our blog or our FB wall (as our own). But the point is, do you really think that your original idea is worth sharing. When it comes to news , we want reality and we want to know what is exactly happening wherever it is happening, and we know that a lot of original news feeds are totally unworthy of our time!…So, being original and genuine is great, but make sure your originality is worth sharing, if not, don’t share it J . I come up with original ideas all that time, but I don’t want to be the origin of bullshit , so I don’t blog all my original ideas.

I understand that I don't understand math. I understand that I don't understand women. I understand that I don't understand motivational speakers. I understand that I don't understand seniority. I understand that I don't understand rules and conventions. I understand that I don't understand a lot of things, and that knowing what I don't understand is pretty much the way forward. PS : If you don't understand this blog post, swing by again when you are told that you are not trying hard enough to understand something, and right then you realize that its true.

I am sure you have attended a meeting that had the motive:  how to stall important decisions , I am sure you hated it. Instead of making a decision all by himself, he diffused the responsibility of decision making to a group. THIS IS WRONG. If you need feedback from your team to make a decision, you don’t setup a team meeting, you setup quick one-on-ones with your team mates. After this, you make a partial decision and then invite everyone for a short meeting to see if the decision is good enough. THIS IS GREAT. All in all, a group is great at disagreeing, but not so good at agreeing . So don’t invite everyone , call only those whose opinion matters and those who get effected by the decision made in the meeting.   If you have some time, or may be if you are in a meeting and have no idea what is going on, see the webcast ( http://video.webcasts.com / events/citr001/39367/ ).

Did I not say that, it is more than OK to not improve on your weakness . Andy puts it really well.

Considering you fall in the Indian middle-class category, think about how much did you parents save before they retired, or how much do they plan to save by the time they retire...let me guess, of all the middle-class people I know (around a 1000), everyone has a flat/house and savings that add up to something around 75-80 Lakh rupees. Now, an average american savings add up to a something between $ 75,000 to $ 200,000 (sources: this  and this ). So, to the max, the average american saves 1 Crore rupees by his retirement, that too for his economy. Now, don't you think we (Indians) are far better than them (Americans) in terms of savings . We do save quiet a lot for our future. With that, I think most of the middle-class Indians can grow old and retire peacefully :). PS : I consider an average American savings to an average middle-class Indian savings, else, there is no comparison. 

I just finished reading a superb article on being present and on a day in the life of a minimalist , these articles don't bring in anything new, that is, I already knew about all that the articles talk about. But these articles are more of a reminder. I am going to try being a minimalist. For starters, I took out 2 pieces of furniture outta my bedroom, put everything (that I don't want to use for sometime) in the shelf, gave out the unused but perfectly wearable shoes, slippers, and clothes to whoever needs it. Also, I am going to practice doing one thing at a time and not get pissed if someone calls me in the middle of my writing/work. Let me JUST be present. Let me lose myself in the music, the moment, I own it ;-) (yeah, that's EMINEM).

then it is of no use, because the normal route becomes less crowded. So, it is profitable to take the normal route when everyone knows the shortcut. A shortcut should be exclusive to a few people, else, taking a shortcut is a waste of time. But the question is, how do you know when not to take the shortcut? Now, I wonder why some people have managed to go far far ahead in their lives/careers following the normal route, I think it is because they knew that everyone else knew about the shortcut and that it’s profitable to take the normal route. J

I support the give-a-shit initiative coz all that I do about green peace, illiteracy, cancer, smoking, drinking, recessions, war, terrorism, education, abuse...is give a shit. I am not one of those who can take shit, but I sure can give as much as possible. You spend at least 15 minutes in the toilet everyday, can you give that time for a social cause. I think you can. Play the video and check out their website .

It's not a grammar class, it's just that I though 'which' and 'that' are interchangeable in almost all the cases in the English language, but then, I was wrong. It makes sense for people who blog everyday to know the difference between 'which' and 'that'.  When you find time, learn about the difference here  (a quick read). Happy blogging.

Google is working on some hi-tech thingy that tells you where to turn to buy your pants , so that, as soon as you reach the store, shopkeeper delivers you the pants you were looking for, and you pay the shopkeeper through your iphone/android set. Before, it used to be like : Park the vehicle >>> Go to the shop  >>>  See the discounts  >>>  Go to the pants section  >>>  Review all the options  >>>  Narrow down to 1-2  >>>  wear them and decide  >>>  buy the pants. Sooner or later, it's going to be : Go to Facebook, if you like someone's pants, click LIKE  >>>  Facebook senses this and informs you about the shop, near your current coordinates (through GPS), that sells those pants  >>>  You go to the store and the shopkeeper hands your those pants  >>>  Tap your phone button to buy the pants. The good , what takes us 45 minutes now is going to take just 5 minutes sooner or later. The b...

You need to decide if you want to be totally correct or correct enough. I review and get reviewed almost on a daily basis, and I think that if I want to be totally correct, I am never going to ship my document; but if I am correct enough, I’ll  be able to ship it on time. Use case: if your email client (code) allows me to send and receive 1TB of data, but fails when I try to utilize more than that…then, I think the code is correct enough, coz in reality I am not going to send and receive 1TB  of mails in my life-time. It is something like this: if you have 20 problems, out of which solving 15 problems cover almost all of your customer needs, and the other 5 problems are somewhat unlikely that your customer will face...then I think, solving those 15 problems is correct enough. So, which one is better- being totally correct or being correct enough.