Working with two Cs

Couple of decades back these people, peopel who work with these 2 Cs were known as geeks. Sometimes even nerds. They are nerds because they are so engrossed with their device and their very difficult  to understand the medium of communication that they don't have time for anything else. They use langauages, their medium of communication, which are not very rich if we compare with the hazar languages that most homosapians uses to communicate. Their language doesn't have words or ways & means to express feelings, love, sorrow, fun, joy. Looks at the device they use - only handful of people understand this device out of 6.8 billion.

Yet these small set of people have created magic. Changed the economy, Changed the way we think. The way we communicate. Changed the world. They have changed the shape of the world - created a flat small world.  Merged east & west. Created Murthy, Nandan, Premji, Nadar,Jery,Nair, D'souza, ... Viswanath, Sabu, Naren, Sandeep, Ravi & Das. Couple of decade back these names were unheard in most part of the world. For some people these were tounge twisters. Today these are in thier mobile addressbooks. And there are bunch of drop outs. Does anyone really care about drop outs - yet these drop outs are today whos who in world economy. There are garage stores, like our favourite pan shops. Today these garage stores are occuping the main streets of the world centers. All these because of the 2 Cs - Computer and Code! Yet if I talk about these 2 Cs to my literature, economics, history, mathematics, hindi, biology, chemistry, physical training .... teachers they don't understand these well. This list also includes my beloved wife - Aparna. But they all appreciate this like anything - may be, at times, next to god. Amazing!!!

It is facinating. And I know for sure that it is facinating to some of you as well. Lets see if we can compile some simple notes about these 2 Cs for the people who doesn't have understanding about these 2Cs. May be some of you will argue that lot available - I will counter with simplicity. May be someone else will argue with why do they need to know - I will counter with the point if you know the system well you can use it better.

So, this is where I am now.  If you have any thoughts/ notes on this please send it to me.

... catch you later!

The Apparatgeist calls - Interesting read from The Economist

How you use your mobile phone has long reflected where you live. But the spirit of the machines may be wiping away cultural differences.

Grief Cycle

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in Death and Dying defined 5 stages of grief cycle - denial, anger, bergaining, depression & acceptance. In a conversation recently someone told me that infact it start with shock.

1. Shock
2. Denial
3. Anger
4. Bergaining
5. Depression
6. Acceptance

How many of you observed this patter in your life?

Non-Linearlity in Information Technology Business

Information Technology business in India has grown exponentially in last 10 years to about 70 billion US Dollars in revenue and employs about 2 million directly. With the current growth trajectory continues (15 to 20%) then it will touch $300B in next 10 years or so. But there will be stiff competition from new entrants and from new locations. So, to grow and bring in non-linearity the current business model which is at present predominantly around cost arbitrage model (cost per hour) has to change quickly. This is a challenge even though as an industry we have matured and move considerably up. Shortage of quality resources in required number, lack of adequate service mentality (even though atithi devo bhavo), global economic and political conditions are the key challenges that we as an industry need to address.

Planning talk about "State of Internet and Mobile Web" at IBM Telecom Sharenet

I believe this is an annual event and VT Raj from IBM invited me to speak. Happening on 23/9 at Royal Orchid Bangalore. Will share with you all.

Are you a Coach or a Player?

Limiting Information Creates Intrigue

Yesterday I was going through my weekend clean up activities (not home cleaning - i generally clean my laptop during the weekend, put notes in proper folders or garbage bin so that Monday my desktop is neat) and found this in one of the stickies - "Limiting Information Creates Intrigue ". This seems to be a very interesting note - something similar to what I generally say - Don't be so transperant that you are naked. I started googling and found this seemingly interesting title In Pursuit of Elegance by Matthew May. The Book talk about why the best ideas have something missing. Author derives elegance from four key elements - Symmetry, Seduction, Subtraction, Sustainability and says "In fact, the elements of elegance can easily conflict with one another. That’s what makes it so difficult to achieve. ... It takes a blend of logic and creativity to understand how to balance the four." Obviously I have not read the book - have you? If so send pass me some thoughts.
summary .

Another Disruptive Technology - Chase your Customer

Think about a situation - your credit card or utility bill payment date is just few days away. Worst if you miss the date - many company penalize the customer. In this situation if a agent comes to you and remind you saying payment is due and he can take the payment from you now. Imagine the same in an online experience. You browse any website and some where in the page the agent appears and informs you that payment is due or overdue and you can make the payment now.

This idea can be extended to online advertisement (I read it somewhere that someone already done that). To cable or IP TV.

Is not it disruptive and bring huge potential?

NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave - 5th Edition

On last Wednesday (August 25) I was at NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave on "Mobile Internet & AppStore - the next big game-changer for emerging/start up companies". It was very well organized and participated. Good to see meaningful participation, experience sharing and thoughts on what next on mobile internet from both young entrepreneurs and industry veterans. Veterans and NASSCOM leadership team, particularly, Som Mittal and Krishnakumar Natarajan (KK) set the ball rolling with tremendous energy. Reputed speakers like Vinay Goel from Google, Naresh Gupta from Adobe, Sharad Sharma Ex Yahoo India CEO provided their perspectives on industry trends. There was few others including Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip, Dhruv Shirangi from Yatra, and Ganesh from TutorVista shared their experience on building internet based business. Hats off to all of them!

However, one guy – didn’t get the chance to meet him, heard about him I think Vineet, was really impressive – young/ energetic/ ground to earth/ and passionate about he does. The founder of RedBus – Phanindra Sama. Selling Indian bus ticket on internet and running profitable business. With the kind leadership and mentoring provided by organization like NASSCOM, TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), The Power of Ideas from Economic Time we will see much more RedBus in the country. By the way I have not yet bought tickets from RedBus! Next opportunity will not miss.

Another interesting thing that is happening, though slowly, in Indian IT industry is that we are now seeing quite a few Indian Product company. Till some time back we only had Subex – now we need fingers to count. Good going.

Before I drop I must note that it was also heartening to see that Secretary, Dept of IT, Govt.Of India, Mr. R Chandrashekhar spent over an hour and showed central government’s interest in promoting entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, this is not happening with State government. Hope someone will set the ball rolling there as well.

Another Disruptive Technology - 3D Computing

Look at Karnataka & Yeddyurappa

Look what Mr. Yeddyurappa is doing at Bangalore. On the first day of Global Investor Meet he made Karnataka reacher by well over 3 Lakh Crores which is expected to create 2 lakh new jobs. Also see who are attending - name any who's who of Indian Industry - you will see them here.

Can we not export some of these thoughts to Saikia, Sarma, Bordoloi? When I asked some of the selfless people in Guwahati (at times these people are also known as idiot) recently about what Saikia, Sarma are doing thay said in the lack of such ideas they are only listing to Gohain, Bora, Choudury ...... And people who confront them (at least in public) are still shouting Jai Aai Asom!

Anything in moderation is good!

Do you agree to this - anything in moderation is good? Sucess, failure, anger, love, hate, money, pain, position, .... including life span. Some one told me - this is a mediocracy mentality. But think for a while.

However, problem is how do you maintain moderation?

Home Communication Hub

Have been working on this idea for some time. Essentially it’s a combination of 3 things - video messaging, hyper local news & home utility computing. Brain storming on video messaging took us to video sticky - putting a video note for someone at home.

Here it is -
Its is a touch screen - may be 10inch and attached to the refrigerator. Have wifi or ethernet connectivity - a voip phone. Has a camera inbuilt - so you can make a video call. Since it has video capabilities, we extended the capabilities to video sticky. You can leave a video message to your spouse / kids / family member saying you will be back from your office early today - so let’s plan for a diner outside. Or tell your spouse that you didn't get time to put clothes in washing machine - or ...

So, when it is not doing video it act as a photo frame - so keep your favorite pictures.

Has an app - that fetches hyper local news based on your location. Be it local events, school news, crime, discounts in local stores, weather & what not ... Bye the way this will be a big thing – do a google and you will get plenty of stuff on this.

It’s also act as a home utility device. Has a family calendar, set reminders etc.