mind-b(l)ogg(l)ing...

at what cost?

2010-05-04T17:23:00.002+05:30

at what cost?
Originally uploaded by Srinivasan-Tatachari.

Bangalore central mall at JP Nagar normally creates irritating sounds through the day because of their diesel generators. This day (Apr 27, 2010) they decided to up the pollution by some 40 minutes of heavy generator smoke. Strongly feel such commercial establishments should not be bang in the middle of residential areas.

long live social media or web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 or whatever its called!!

2010-05-01T22:36:00.000+05:30

Sometimes it feels stupid to be broadcasting your thoughts out into the wide cyberspace, with no clue of who or what is receiving and interpreting those signals. Sometimes it pays you back!!

Recently I ordered some nice 8x10 photo prints from zoomin.com to avail of a 50p.c. discount. I was thrilled to receive pics of my lovely sons in a day or so in that large format. So I immediately shared my happiness with the tweeple/unknowns out there. The next day I was pleasantly surprised to see that my tweet was retweeted by zoomin.com! So off I went to follow their tweets and learnt through a quick read that they were offering some privilege invites to their new brick and mortar shop in bangalore. I asked them and got an invite too. The invite gave me access to a couple of their products free in the form of a goody bag. I promptly went to their store and ordered those products - with the help of the pleasant and friendly staff. The products came close to Rs 500/-... nice, eh?? Then while leaving I got a surprise gift of a lovely "photoholic" cap from zoomin.com!

All in all a once in a while wonderful experience. And many hat tips to the social web that has enabled such lovely experiences to happen. So, now I know what to think of whenever that creepy feeling comes back :)

its easy to say sorry, but...

2010-04-21T11:56:00.000+05:30

Its said that its not easy to say "sorry". I think its easy to just say the word "sorry" without really meaning it from the depths of one's heart.

Its tough to really feel sorry and seek forgiveness for one's mistakes.

Social samadhi or social coma or social suicide

2010-04-20T12:02:00.000+05:30

I went into social samadhi last weekend due to build up of some incidents (you can check my other blog). I think terms like social coma or social suicide also seem to suit the status. During this time I kept off the online social circuits that I am a regular on (FB, Twitter, Buzz, Flickr, IM) and to some extent on the physical front too. I had to meet up with relatives over the weekend (it could not be avoided). It wasnt too difficult to keep off from the online social front, except that tempting email notiifications etc would pop in now and then, and required some effort to keep away from.

The time away from these social fronts gave me good time to get back into self-introspection and the realization of old wisdom: to keep doing your duty and not get attached to the results. It also freed my mind from thinking in terms of status updates to more free flowing thoughts. I wonder if others too feel this impact in their thinking: micro blogging seems to have fragmented my thinking process and staccato thoughts had become the norm. Switching off seemed to help.

So after few days of this social samadhi I think it is possible to overcome constricted thinking and get back to my normal thinking.

two major flaws in shopping areas

2010-04-04T13:02:00.000+05:30

Having visited the latest versions of shopping malls and hypermarkets, two things continue to strike me as major drawbacks.

For one, these formats enjoy a huge number of footfalls everyday. And that gets compounded whenever a sale is announced (which is quite often!). Not all of the people entering are the actual shoppers, by which I mean that there are other family members who tag along (and are potential buyers). There are also such family members who have picked up stuff that they want and are awaiting the other members to complete their choices. How long can such people keep standing and walking around? Imagine pregnant women, adults with infants, elderly folks, differently abled people... The logical answer is.. Let them sit and wait. True. But Where?? All of these formats have NONE or half-minded attempts at providing seating place for people. I faced problems carrying my infant child (asleep in my arms) with no place to sit at SPAR (BG Road), Shoppers Stop (BG Road) in midst of a bustling sale, Central (JNR) with a couple of sofas on some floor! I am surprised with this view of customers. I understand that the owners would love to keep people on their feet walking around merchandise and pick up something unplanned for.. but this is the heights. My mind immediately compares the experiences in these places with the traditional shops like Nalli in Chennai, where there is more than enough seating space to engage the folks who want to sit. Why cant some compact designs, which dont take up much floor space, be used in these modern formats?

The second drawback that I keep experiencing and I worry that the Retail world has been struggling in general with, is the billing counters. When the crowds are more some shops dont bother increasing the active billing counters. When crowds are less some shops bring down the active billing counter to just ONE! So whether you go at peak time or off-peak time you are sure to face billing delays. And if you are unlucky to hit it during the shift change, you can be sure of more delays. Something needs to be done... Some shops abroad have self-checkouts, are we afraid to try them in India? Its time someone bravely experimented in this area.

innocent dialogues

2009-07-14T13:44:00.000+05:30

inspired by the blog of my friend: http://innocentdialogue.blogspot.com/.. couple of conversations involving my elder son..

Conversation 1:
Me: You keep breaking all your toys. You know that we have to pay money to buy toys, if you keep breaking toys from where will we get the money to buy new toys?

Elder Son: From the bank!

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

Conversation 2:
(my uncle visited to see the newborn younger son and as indian tradition warrants he presented the son with a 100 rupee note. promptly my elder son goes to him..)
Elder Son: What about me?
Uncle: This is for the newborn. you got yours when you were newborn.
Elder Son (disappointed): So this is for newborns, oldborns dont get it! :(

even school buses??...

2009-03-23T13:37:00.000+05:30

on my way to the college today afternoon stopped alongside a Christ school bus at a signal. there were some loud voices coming from the bus. Turned out to be some fight the kids had within themselves and the bus conductor was intervening. One kid was crying with a hand over his right eye (i presumed he must have got hurt).. lo and behold the conductor landed a couple of blows on the other kid.

this is no different from my earlier post on the school private vans, but that was worse since it carried tiny tots and not grown ups like this bus. Still i found it strange that the conductor assumes such authority to intervene in a arguement and get physical!!

I was thinking school buses are better off than vans.. now i dont know. I have decided that wherever my kids land up in school I will personally pick and drop them.

twitter here and twitter there

2009-03-14T17:05:00.000+05:30

Been really taken in by twitter and the social networking phenomenon behind that. Its a nice concept. One that sort of merges IM, instant messaging and SMS and social networking.

am finding it useful to network with others who are doing dissertation and other researchers, also sharing findings on research tools etc.

if you are interested follow my updates on http://www.twitter.com/srinitata

Technorati Tags: Twitter, social networking

Private Vans for your school going child? think again!

2009-03-03T14:59:00.001+05:30

Today whilst waiting to pick up my son from his pre-primary school in Jayanagar 4thT Block, me and my mom were observing the 'private' vans who came to pick up their children.

Most of them are Maruti Omni vans which try to overstuff the little children into them. The driver generally is alone and finding it impossible to manage that number of children, is not able to safely cater to them. The children cross the (small) street on their own up to the van, some adventurous kids will try to break out and explore the surroundings, some will try to even get into the van themselves so as to grab their favourite spot. (the street just needs one rash driver to do the unimaginable. if one Karthik Somaiya can wreak so much havoc on elders imagine his effect on tiny tots.)

Today's incident takes the cake. In their rush one of the LKG or UKG kid got pushed and fell down. The driver (vehicle plate ending 5674) immediately got agitated and hit(!) the kid right behind the 'fallen' kid. We didnt know what transpired between them, but the driver rallied some more blows on the hapless child. After the kid got in, still the driver stretched in and gave him some more blows. Whatever the kid was saying or doing notwithstanding, he was still a tiny kid. what rights did the driver have to hit him so much? And all this was happening just metres from the school gates.

When I complained about this to my son's teacher I was told that the school did not have any authority over these drivers. It was solely between the parents and the van drivers.

I only wish I had video shot the entire scene - maybe then parent will be more careful about using such van drivers again.

apart from the above most of these drivers also use their mobile phones while driving with their van-load of kids. I can only ominously see an impending tragedy waiting to happen. God save us.

Technorati Tags: private van, school, driver, rash, behaviour

discovered one good and easy way to boost self-confidence

2009-03-01T22:18:00.000+05:30

after months of debating I finally decided to ask for recommendations from my LinkedIn network for my work done with them. (the debate was whether to 'sink' my & others' efforts on this site)...

and it was nice to see recos pouring in from people far (time and space) away... and I realized while reading and approving them that they acted as a major boost for my self-confidence. They weren't typically any different from what I know about myself - but its good to read positive things about yourself from others' mouths.

And since one can choose people to ask recommendations from, they are most likely to be positive recommendations for you!

I think this is a great way to improve your resume and your self-confidence!!

Technorati Tags: linkedin, self-confidence, resume

Beware of these HiFi shops and offers!!

2009-02-19T18:17:00.003+05:30

Two stories that can make you think twice about shopping in malls

story 1 - SPAR:
I have started patronizing Spar on Bannerghatta road ever since it opened, mainly for the fresh veggies they provide. Generally I have had not had major complaints this far. This one takes the cake.

I picked up a Godrej Mosquito repellant combo pack which provided a new Base and a refill pack free. This (thanks Godrej!!) comes in a flimsy open small cardboard box. Without a thought I read the pack and plonked it in my cart. When the scene moved to the time I opened it at home, guess what! The refill pack was not there at all in the pack! Luckily it still had the base.

The box had definitely been opened, either by a sick customer or a sick employee. Either ways I lost in the bargain, paying for that sicko's act. I didnt go back to the store as its out of way and I didnt want to spend the effort.

Story 2 - Shopper's Stop
We saw the adverts all over the media for 'upto 51% off' at the Shopper's Stop and since we already had some gift vouchers from them to redeem, we were all the more tempted. We decided to buy some stuff for my son's upcoming birthday in April. So far so good -we found some nice deals on jeans, undergarments and t-shirts for him. Some were on 20% sale, some were on 50% sale (i really dont know what they had on 51% sale!!) and some carried two price tags with varied rates and an advertisement flap which mentioned again whether it was a 20% or 50% sale. Fastforward to the 'nice' billing section. The guy starts scanning the barcodes (doesnt find one on the jeans).. meantime I am shocked to see the numbers that pop on the green LED display - they show the undiscounted rates. When I ask the guy he says something, then does something and the new prices appear. He says that it doesnt work automatically and that the tags are already showing the discounted rate. I was furious. First of all the store CONFUSES shoppers by having multiple tags and discount figures on the same item. Then the checkout employee doesnt have a clue as to what is happening. And if the machines were not taking the discounted rates automatically I am disgusted. I wonder how many have been taken for a ride by now (The sale is still on!!!). Please check your lists carefully if you decide to venture there to save a quick buck!

Now.. I know that two incidents dont make a trend. But I would bet that these kind of incidents would not happen at my mom & pop store that I frequent. Agree that he may not be able to offer such volume discounts/variety.. but hey at least my Blood Pressure aint Rising!!!

Update (Feb 20, 2009): One heartening outcome is that I got a mail the next day from Shoppers Stop customer relations enquiring whether I got the discount at all and thanking me for bringing this incident in the open. I think this is definitely the way forward for all retail/service companies to keep tabs on opinions and incidents via the Net. I give shoppers stop a plus point for this one, at least!

2008-12-01T10:42:00.003+05:30

My blog had been sleeping all this while (almost a year now).. and the one thing to wake me up is the dastardly act of terrorism on my birthplace. I have been born in mumbai and have visited the Gateway many a times. I feel really sad that a handful of disoriented men were allowed to wreak such havoc on innocents and heritage monuments!

I could not stay away from the news channels which did not breathe any other news till this operation was over. And I share the agony and frustration that many people have expressed over the lack of disaster management that our governments have in place today.

Incidentally while this whole tragedy was unfolding I was watching the movie 'A wednesday' and saw the amazing practical validity of the protagonist's actions. I guess the world really needs 'Anniyans' who can mop up the mess.

one more photo picked up for publication..

2007-12-24T19:55:00.001+05:30

one more picture that i took is being evaluated for publication..

check it out.

a trip to my native village

2007-12-06T11:04:00.001+05:30

last week i drove down to my native village, near vandavasi in tiruvannamalai district. i havent been there for more than an hour, in my whole life. my grandparents and my father moved out from there ages ago, in search of better work etc. a handful of our people still live there.

the occasion was my grandfather's 100th birthday celebrations. he was a great sanskrit vidwan. we had to spend a day and a half and also sleep a night there. we felt quite excited about it. it was, after all, our native land - made pure by our ancestors. my son would also be introduced to the place.

i was excited even about the drive - since any trip which involves driving (except to city centers ;) ) pumps my adrenalin. i checked the maps and the routes to the place. referred my cousin bro for directions.

our drive was doomed from the start - thanks to the lovely bangalore traffic, at 7.30am. it took us an hour or so to reach electronics city from jayanagar, on hosur road. from there it was quick to krishnagiri and then we took the diversion to tiruvannamalai, to get further to tindivanam and then vandavasi. this patch was HORRIBLE!! it is called NATIONAL HIGHWAY 66 (NH66) and i couldnt believe that the highway could be in this state and that too in south india where roads normally are good. the road had holes the size of craters.. even buses had to let go of their speed for them.

a total 7 gruelling hours later we made it.. 3pm!luckily in time for closer of the day's events and lunch - yum! the village was fabulous and held us in its magical awe.. we immediately felt like buying a house and making regular trips there!! the greenery was amazing. the sweet (almost family) temple. it was a lovely experience. check it out:

we stayed the night there. had celebrations the next day. and after a grand lunch left to chennai to spend the weekend with our parents. returned back to bangalore - and experienced the lovely traffic on hosur road (the NICE road was closed that day). all in all an excellent trip!!

my world is changing....

2007-06-01T17:30:00.000+05:30

things are not the same anymore and things will not be the same anymore. after thirteen long years in ONE I.T. company (name will be revealed pretty soon!) i have decided to take the plunge into further studies.

i will be shortly joining the indian institute of management bangalore for a fellow program (ph d) in organizational behaviour and human resources area.

currently i am on a 'vacation' having quit in may and enjoying an 'unemployed' phase.

will post more on my trysts with the company while leaving it... how i will manage my life going on... etc.

till then

the curse of the balckrbrery!!

2007-02-14T16:14:00.001+05:30

whether or not they aid 24x7 realtime communication, the Blackberrys in the hands of our Managers are increasingly helping their subordinates evolve into more (selectively) intelligent human beings.

Who said that funny typos and cryptic words over mobile SMS are the domain of teens - check your latest boss-sent-blackberry-sent email to know the truth.

I really hope I never be given one by my Company!

technorati tags:blackberry, SMS, mail, typo

Apt for valentine's day

2007-02-13T13:51:00.001+05:30

If you arent already subscribed to the wonderful visual blog from Jessica you better start right now! Find a link at the end of this post.

here is what she has visualised for valentine's - wonderful. i am completely with her on this and wish all the people in love looked more for B than A :). Happy Valentine's Day!!

indexed: What are you getting for Valentine's Day?

technorati tags:valentine, day, jessica, indexed

A social experiment - inline with HMPF

2007-02-12T11:54:00.001+05:30

An interesting new business in Kirkland - a Coffee shop where the coffee is 'free', the customer chooses the amount to pay and does so anonymously. The basis is trust - trust that the customer will pay whats due - more so due to social pressure of the other customers around them. I think this blends in well as a model working against the typical HMPF: Hurt the Many to Prevent the Few syndrome - cant we do more of this in the corporate world then??

Read on for the complete news article:

With its blood-red walls and black leather sofas, Kirkland's Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop — until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn't have them.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: A Kirkland cafe with no prices

technorati tags:social, experiment, HMPF, hurt the many to prevent the few

Nice Ads from Tata Consultancy

2007-02-12T11:37:00.001+05:30

TCS - the pioneer of Indian IT exports.. nice series of Ads. Quite unlike ones seen so far from an Indian IT services Co.!!

IT put India on the world map. But who put IT on the Indian map? Today, IT accounts for 21.3% of India'stotal exports.
TATA Consultancy Services Truly Global.

TATA Consultancy Services: Stamps | Ads of the World

technorati tags:TCS, Tata, Consultancy, Services, advertisement

Nice Advertisement

2007-02-12T11:35:00.001+05:30

An Ad for a ferry that offers free tickets for those parents travelling with 2 or more kids - a reversal of the traditional 'kids go free' marketing idea.. the visual is amazing!!

Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts

technorati tags:advertisement

100s of free fonts

2007-02-08T16:11:00.001+05:30

UrbanFonts.com

Via LifeHacker

technorati tags:free, fonts, windows, mac

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-02-08T15:49:00.001+05:30

Amazing video - neat editing - cool music - simple messages

Cross-Sex Friendship

2007-02-08T13:16:00.001+05:30

With all the media messages from movies and TV we gather this notion that male-female friendship or what researchers call cross-sex friendship is not possible. This following article points out that though it is a difficult area men and women can indeed be close friends and that they both gain from the relationship! This aspect is very important given the corporate settings where men and women rub shoulders and share the same responsibilities.

From my own experiences I have friendly relations with many women and some of them are very close - so close that both sides consider each other part of their family itself. So I would support the claim that it is possible to have platonic and successful cross-sex relations. However I am not sure if personal characteristics are also at play here. I define myself as highly emotional, more than the average male and I come out as a very good listener/empathizer - both of which lend to good acceptability with women friends. But if I was the typical male then probably acceptability would be with only those women who are more action-oriented, into sports, gizmos etc.

What do you think about this from your own experiences?

Read the entire article: Psychology Today: Can Men and Women Be Friends?

technorati tags:friend, relationship, cross-sex

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The human side of the consulate

2007-02-05T17:16:00.001+05:30

I had to appear for the US Visa interview and having heard and read a lot about the stringent security measures was bracing myself for a harrowing experience. Well it wasnt that bad an experience (apart from feeling like a criminal - being frisked on the footpath, submitting fingerprints-gosh even the Indian Government doesnt have my prints and now they are already on the way to the US!) when I read something on the counter wall while awaiting my interview.

The note was a request from the US consulate employees requesting the interviewees to 'please do not reveal the US superbowl results'!! Now, I thought that was a real human side showing up.

Technorati Tags: consulate, humane, human

Lovely tutorial on Peer-Assist techniques based on "learning to fly"

2007-02-01T16:39:00.000+05:30

A lovely, crisp, informative and cute tutorial on the art of Peer-Assist created by the University of Ottawa.

Peer-Assist is a useful technique to obtain expert-peer help on collaborative problem-solving and thereby is closely linked to Knowledge Management.

I found this through a number of sources so I dont know whom to mention - I do remember Jane's e-learning blog and Shawn Callahan's blog mentioning this tutorial! thanks to them and others.

enjoy the tutorial here.

the amazing julian beever

2007-02-01T13:35:00.001+05:30

DSC_0199
Originally uploaded by pavementpicasso.

i've always been amazed by the work this guy does - and am thrilled to see his collection on flickr.

even more thrilled to see him in action thanks to Rohit Bhargava's blog/agency and YouTube.

check out the time-lapse video here.

Copyrights are of respective owners

arent 8 hours enough??

2007-01-29T16:45:00.001+05:30

Ergopod 500 details

technorati tags:work, infinite

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this sucks!!

2007-01-23T12:09:00.001+05:30

last week during an email exchange with a couple of long lost friends in the US i was informed by my friendly office spam-filter software that 2 mails from the above friends were quarantined because of the use of profanity. well - i know these guys enough to know that something else was wrong here.

so i ask my living email administrator to unblock and forward those mails. politely refusing to do so he quoted the policy not allowing mails using profanity. thankfully he forwarded the log entry from the filter software and could make out that the culprit in question was suck or sucks.

so i ask my friends to tailor that word and resend me the mails. it worked.

i think the filter just sucks (just like some other things in the corporate world)!!

Technorati Tags: spam filter, email, corporate

try-before-buy Mobile Ringtones

2007-01-18T18:01:00.001+05:30

i have faced this silly customer service situation many a times and i don't think its gone away. there are numerous ways of mobile ringtone downloads for eg. either by sending an SMS with a code or by browsing the mobile service provider's services.

these services easily cost Rs. 10/- per download and guess what there is NO way to preview the tone (at least i havent seen a service that allows it). and a number of times the downloaded mobile ring tone is a far cry from the expected musical ring. in these cases its pure earning to the service provider with no value to the customer.

so how come there is no law in india that requires a try-before-buy preview (a la itunes music shop) before paying for download??? maybe we need to buzz the consumer forums. even if there isnt a law i would like to see one brave provider start this service (even at a small excess charge per download for the preview).

Technorati Tags: india, mobile, ring tones, consumer, service

why pay the government to do this??

2007-01-17T11:22:00.000+05:30

as part of a nearby college's function they invited a central-level minister as a chief guest. this is what was done to our house's neat walls as part of his welcome.. quietly in the middle of the night.

the minister's name and party is self-evident.

is this why we pay tax?? a government that should be keeping my surroundings clean uses my money to do some stupid ego-massaging!!

trusting your employees OR HMPF...

2007-01-17T10:50:00.001+05:30

came across a post that matches my thoughts on trusting employees. also goes nicely with my earlier post on how (illogically) paranoid our organizations are.

".....and that means trusting people to look after their space. Try applying lessons in managing the physical to manage the virtual.
You don't remove all unused electrical sockets from office space just in case a user decides to bring in a DVD player and sit watching pornography at their desk. Instead, you have a company policy that (should) make it pretty clear what activities are likely to lead to being fired."

In fact a lot of our users' requirements and sharepoint features (eg mysites) are not getting implemented simply because the decision-makers are not ready to trust employees with them. "do you know what all they will put up there??", "how will we able to monitor 1000s of employees' sites??" are typical responses of an evidently un-trusting management.

i am calling this a case of Hurt the Many to Prevent the Few (HMPF!) - do you have more examples of HMPF to share??

Joining Dots: d.SharePoint - OurSpace

technorati tags:trust, employees, sharepoint, KM

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the growing India phenomenon...

2007-01-16T11:18:00.001+05:30

an interesting report from the Economist Intelligence Unit as part of their 60th anniversary

...that appraises the crucial global developments which have taken place over the past sixty years, and then speculates on what lies in store for business and economies over the next 60 years....

has an interesting prediction "By 2066, the US will have relinquished its hyper-power status. Although it will continue to have the most bombs and rockets, and cutting-edge military technology, it won't dare to act without the nod from a now very wealthy China and India."

i am quite pleased with this prediction and just hope that it becomes reality... and going by this i might not be disappointed.

Read the entire report for free at EIU.com

technorati tags:economist, report, india, superpower, china

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Interesting concept - bed and breakfast for fellow bloggers!!

2007-01-12T17:38:00.001+05:30

Came across this interesting concept of lending a bed (or two) to bloggers visiting your city and receiving the same when visiting their cities. This has been started by a chennaite blogger Kiruba Shankar. am wondering if there is a similar concept for worldwide sharing??

ExtraBed.in - The password is 'blog'.

technorati tags:bed, blogger, sharing

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An age old Advert slogan that I still cant forget

2007-01-12T17:08:00.001+05:30

FILL IT. SHUT IT. FORGET IT

From the Hero & Honda JV in India which set the trend for fuel-efficient and low-pollution bikes.

Hero Honda Corporate Profile

technorati tags:advertising, hero, honda

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blast them slowly.

2007-01-12T11:26:00.001+05:30

Congratulations to ISRO which has been slowly and steadily gaining ground and reputation. It has put india on the commercial satellite launch map - am sure much to the chagrin of some countries.It also launches its own satellites which are for mainly non-military use. This is a yet another moment that makes Indians proud..

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C7, successfully launched four satellites -- India’s CARTOSAT-2 and Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), Indonesia’s LAPAN-TUBSAT and Argentina’s PEHUENSAT-1 into a 635 km high polar orbit. Jan 10, 2007

PSLV Successfully Launches Four Satellites

technorati tags:ISRO, space, launch, satellites

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Free Audio Book - Pyromarketing by Greg Stielstra

2007-01-11T16:59:00.001+05:30

Pyromarketing

Free Audio BookThe era of mass marketing is ending and a new method is poised to take its place. Learn the new way and how to apply it to your business. Here you can listen to the entire PyroMarketing audio book as streaming audio, or download it as MP3 files to your computer or iPod.

I intend to listen to it soon (my dear company doesnt allow me to download mp3 files at work :( !!)

technorati tags:marketing, ebook, free

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Apple Inc.

2007-01-10T15:31:00.001+05:30

One of my favourite companies, Apple, (no longer Apple Computer!!) has launched the much-rumoured iphone.. umm.. as usual it looks applishly-interesting :)

.

Apple - iPhone

technorati tags:apple, iphone

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Innovative Thinking

2007-01-10T13:36:00.001+05:30

Dave Pollard shares some profound thoughts on innovative thinking that's needed for solving complex problems of this century

"one way of thinking differently would be thinking without language"

At first its difficult to figure out how one would be able to think without using language - but then as Dave points out examples abound in our very own lives; our children learning without the benefit of language - doing and learning as they try out various things to help them make decisions. Language came about only as a means to aid communication between entities. I guess this is the reason that images evoke much more responses in us (for example in presentations) than just pure words (language).

As Dave points out our education hardwires a language based thinking which definitely limits the range of creativity which would be needed in today's complex world and its time that we learnt to think beyond language as thinking itself to thinking without language.

Read Dave's full post here: How to Save the World

technorati tags:innovative, thinking, language, learning, communication

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Great Advert

2007-01-04T14:12:00.001+05:30

Well - it took me some time to figure out that the visual depicted tiger stripes!!!! Then it felt like a fabulous concept.

For the sake of the tiger, the deer must live.
For the sake of the deer, the grasslands must live.
For the sake of the grasslands, the rivers must live.
For the sake of the earth, the tiger must live.

Via: Sanctuary Asia: Tree | Ads of the World

technorati tags:advertising, nature, tiger

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Hey global companies … When will you really get local??

2007-01-03T14:45:00.000+05:30

I find it strange that the packaging of a local version of the Easy-off Bang cleaning product of one of the large global CPG companies, Reckitt Benckiser, seems to have botched up the label (see pic).

They have conveniently forgotten putting useage instructions and other info in Hindi (actually they should provide 3-4 most popular languages in india – like they do for Europe) and only given the caution message in hindi. which is to mean that use it without knowing what it is but be warned about what damages it can do??

… is this what going local means??

MS Sharepoint Search and word-stemming

2007-01-03T10:34:00.001+05:30

A useful tip that i found for those of us with MS Sharepoint installations. reminds me to check the same in our organization - the only problem as mentioned in the original post is that the index will also get bigger and performance could be negatively affected if documents run into millions.

Word stemming is turned off by default. I've just checked on my demo laptop and he's right. If you want to turn on word stemming, here's how:
* Go to the search page, enter any old query to return the search results page
* Under Site Actions, select 'Edit page'
* Locate the 'Search Core Results' web part (usually in the bottom zone)
* From the Edit button, select 'Modify shared web part' * In the tool bar on the right hand side, under 'Results Query Options', check the box labeled 'Enable Search Term Stemming'
And hey presto, it's switched on.

Joining Dots

technorati tags:knowledge management, KM, Microsoft SPS, sharepoint, search

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plastic digital paper

2007-01-03T10:24:00.001+05:30

Just came across this today and its something that i have been thinking of too in recent times. i have been trying to read e-books on my laptop and found it very incovenient (hot too) and uncomfortable to handle (on the bed, sofa wherever) in comparison with a normal book. Sometime back i had also read about technology that was getting digital plastic prints which could show images and motion (ad agencies). and i was wondering that its time to put the two together and get into digital plastic books..

i am sure this (see sample pic below) will be a great tool to possess once it gets into mass circulation..

Manage To Change

technorati tags:pastic, paper, ebook

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thoughts and pix from india

2006-12-29T15:49:00.001+05:30

thoughts and pix from india
Originally uploaded by s.r.i.n.i..

took this pic at home and somehow i liked it so much that i decided this will be my profile icon... indicating my thoughts (in this blog) and my pix (on flickr) originating from the vibrant india!!

Playing with photoshop

2006-12-29T12:25:00.001+05:30

a detailed tutorial on how to achieve splashes of original color in a B&W photo.. i have always wanted to figure this out and this knowledge sharing will definitely help...

Mono, with a Dash of Colour - Photoshop CS2 Tutorial

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Love

2006-12-29T09:56:00.001+05:30

Love should be unconditional else it isnt love at all; it becomes a business deal! Given that relationships have give and take adjustments but love transcends all this.

St. Therese wrote: "When one loves, one does not calculate."

via: The Happiness Project

technorati tags:love, thought

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Gifts and sentimental value

2006-12-28T18:29:00.001+05:30

Analysis by James Surowiecki of The Wisdom of Crowds fame pulls in various research in the area of gifts and its value to the receiver. we make more mistakes in buying gifts for our near and dear ones as per one research and the sentimental impact of the receiver thinking that the Rs 500 shirt you bought is worth only Rs 300 makes things bad. So its better to select small value and well-thought out gifts than expensive ones and a gift card is another useful alternative.

this year for my father's birthday we had run out of ideas for buying things for him - since he doesnt like us spending unnecessarily and also because of his lifestyle. finally we settled for a number of low cost pens to keep around, since pens always went missing when he wanted it urgently! i think it was a shocker for him - but he accepted it. (by now the situation is back to no-pens-when-he-needs-them-the-most!!)

here is an extract from the NYT article..

Waldfogel’s studies also suggest a very different solution: if most of the presents we buy are going to be less valuable in monetary terms than in sentimental ones, then there’s no reason to believe that the more expensive gift is a better gift.

The New Yorker : talk : content

technorati tags:gift, sentiments, value

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Ambient devices - preattentive processing

2006-12-28T17:23:00.001+05:30

interesting company and products... tapping into what is called pre-attentive processing where our brains are able to filter and attend to inputs which are of importance to us. For eg. in the busy airport we still would react if someone called out our name..

here is a sample ambient product:

Ambient OrbThe Orb is a frosted-glass ball glows different colors to display real time stock market trends, traffic congestion, pollen forecasts, or any other Ambient information channel: weather, windspeed, pollen, traffic congestion, energy pricing and more.

Ambient Devices - Product applications for Ambient technologies

technorati tags:interesting, product, company

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Yousefulness of YouTube...

2006-12-28T14:08:00.001+05:30

YouTube helps police find murder suspect..

When the first news clips about the police sharing video on youtube for investigation came out there were skeptics who said that it wouldnt work because youtube is global and not local. but they probably forgot that whats global is seen locally and i would definitely be interested in a video related to my neighborhood.. anyway in this case it has worked and the police have someone for the crime - thanks to youtube..

YouTube helps police find murder suspect | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com

wonder what more youses youtube will be employed for??!!!

technorati tags:youtube, criminal, investigations

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A moody start of the workday

2006-12-28T09:52:00.001+05:30

This is based on a knowledge@wharton article of july 2006 - which i seem to have missed. it analyses based on a study on how the start-of-the-day mood affects people at work. i have found myself carrying to work some negative moods triggered by jerks on the road, incompetence of the municipalities, life in general.. and physiological after effects like fast breathing, fast heart beats and general fumes from the ears take some while to stabilise.

"One of our findings shows that the mood people bring with them at the very start of the workday influenced employee mood more powerfully and consistently than any other variable,"

Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Desk: The Effect of Mood on Work Performance - Knowledge@Wharton

taking this opportunity forward - some of the small things that irritate me on a workday:

- guys coming alone to office in 7 seaters/SUVs
- guys with music 'blaring' from their earphones at the workplace which is more disturbing than a speaker because of loss of clarity
- coming to office on a monday and finding the 'deep clean' team messed up the desktop items over the weekend
- guys who pee and dont wash --especially guys who are responsible for the pantry!! (eeesssshh!!)
- guys who receive and make calls while pee-ing (is the world coming to an end???)

what are your small peeves at work?

technorati tags:work, peeves, crib

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Good news for Flock and Blogger users

2006-12-22T16:57:00.000+05:30

Flock's latest update has taken care of the 'blog this' feature to include the new version of blogger -so you can easily post entries right from within flock (like this post has been)

so download it and happy blogging....

fabulous ad - our very own TATA motors

2006-12-22T13:33:00.001+05:30

A very nice way of conveying environmental friendliness!!!

Tata Motors: Eco Friendly | Ads of the World

technorati tags:advertising

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(e)Book on Happiness

2006-12-21T11:20:00.000+05:30

came across a book (freely available to read online): Happy Hour is 9 to 5 by Alexander Kjerulf.
normally i dont tend to get into prescriptive self-help books on topics like health & happiness... but i started quickly browsing through this book and i am sure that i am going to complete it (someday) and learn and try out a few things. A quick thing that struck a chord in me from whatever i read so far is about Meetings and how boring and frustrating they normally are. he suggests some questions that can help change the way the meeting proceeds and concludes... and that is by asking questions from the team like...

What have I done since the last meeting that I’m proud of?
Name a person who has helped me since the last meeting.
What am I looking forward to the most in the coming week/month?
What’s the funniest thing someone has told me in the last week?

i would love to have our team try this out..

his philosophy behind happiness in work is :

Be positive
Learn
Be open
Participate
Find meaning
Love

dakshinchitra - a wonderful village! Chennai

2006-12-18T18:37:00.001+05:30

A visit to dakshinchitra, chennai:

dakshinchitra - a village that houses houses from the four southern states of india - tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, karnataka and kerala. in some cases original (ancient) houses have been dismantled and brought here and reassembled (amazing!!). in addition to the houses artisans work and sell their wares. in some cases you can even try your hand at some artwork. there is this wonderful glass blower (though i dont really see why he is called a blower!) who works magic onto borosil glass tubes and converts them to beautiful images in minutes. the photo alongside is a 10minute work on creating Ganesha - the Elephant God of Hindus. As you can see the idol is still attached to the borosil tube and is red-hot at the bottom!

The entire area would take a day to look through and its something everyone visiting chennai should have a look at!

take a look at some more of my snaps from the trip: here

The security-crazy IT services organisations or why I almost broke my USB flash drive

2006-12-13T14:10:00.000+05:30

I have a notebook (laptop) that is company-provided. A few months back i wanted to copy some stuff from my laptop into my USB drive. For some strange reason it said that the drive was writeprotect. I desparately tried the 'writeprotect' switch on the usb drive but to no success. then i tried the drive on my iMAc at home - it wrote perfectly fine. Again i tried it on the laptop and no luck! while toggling the micro-switch on the usb to figure out the problem i guess it took too much of force and broke (picture above)!! now it takes a small pin to move that switch around - an luckily it still wrote fine on the mac. from then on i only used it to write from the mac and read into the laptop!

last week when a friend and i were discussing some thing he casually mentioned that he had had a similar problem and it was a very critical situation - so he did some googling and figured out that windows XP Service Pack2 gave an option to 'writeprotect' USB storage devices!! and that our office laptops were configured with the write protect enabled. he changed it and it worked fine!!! my god! and i almost broke my perfectly fine USB drive thinking its a stupid hardware and compatability issue.

Quickly I reset the entry in the registry and voila it worked fine on windows!!!

Two things to ponder:
- the difficulty nowadays in comprehending whether issues are software or hardware. and the fact that one can catch these quite easily by tapping into the Internet wisdom (which i didnt - maybe my need wasnt so desparate a need as my friend's)
- how security-paranoid the companies are today and for no logical reason (i already have a laptop which i carry home - which means all the company data goes home with me.. so whats the point of disabling a stupid USB feature)

here is the official MS note about this USB control key ....

this is the culprit...registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control \StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect

and here is a page from a recent BW article that talks about Infosys and USB

Resounding view of a KM function

2006-12-13T13:30:00.000+05:30

Something from an article I found through my Google RSS feed on KM content:

Many argue that KM thrives in firms that have a KM organization that provides visibility, focus and direction to its KM activities. Rather than undertaking every sort of KM work itself, the KM can instead serve as an internal consulting group whose mission is to build KM skills, capabilities and behaviors in lawyers, practice groups and administrative functions. Over time, this approach strengthens the firm as a whole by embedding knowledge management in every individual's work activities.

Entire article is available Here

This resounds very well with what I too personally advocated in all of my KM sessions with new comers to my company. I always told them that the KM team was here only to facilitate for now and once the KM ideas get practiced and embedded in each one, there wouldn't be a need for a separate KM function - at least not in the way it currently is! I believe this will take time.. a lot of time!

Lessons from cute Nemo!!!

2006-11-28T22:57:00.000+05:30

Normally i switch off mentally while watching movies - its never made sense to make sense of most of the movies. However in a rare occassion i have learnt/reinforced some good things from movies. Here is one such occassion...

Disney Channel on TV has been broadcasting 'Finding Nemo' endlessly over the last few months and to keep my son occupied i sit and watch with him (he normally will hold on for only 10 minutes after that its me watching the movie). seeing this movie so many times had actually switched on my mind to a learning: in the scene with the jellyfish, marlin faces a crisis - he has to make dori come along with him and escape but also to make sure she doesnt get stung. knowing her playfulness he converts the situation into a game which more suits her character: he tells her that its a game to race each other till the end by jumping over the heads of the jelly fish and not touching anyother part. dori immediately buys-in and almost makes it to the end.

here is a wonderful case of converting a lose-lose situation to a win-win situation by adapting the context to suit all stakeholders! the second thing i learnt from the movie was while actually surfing the pixar site to get some images from the movie. As noted on the pixar site Nemo's underdeveloped fin was symbolic of issues that cause parents to worry about their children's ability to adapt and get along in the world without their parent's help. and being a parent myself it definitely struck me to prepare myself for my son's growth.

so - kudos to pixar and the team for putting in such insights into a fun movie!

a pity - not realizing the worth of one's team members!!

2006-11-27T23:40:00.000+05:30

here is a classic case of organizations not utilising the key stengths that individuals bring to them. i have a friend , with a strong background in psychology who joined our knowledge management team a year back. in my mind she immediately struck as being a vital contributor to the KM initiative in the organization. but - sadly - one year down the road and she hasnt used any of her skills to the current role (despite the manager knowing her background). also she has brought out certain aspects about KM which have been ignored by the team.

its so sad that our manager (read organization) has not backed her skills and leveraged it for the benefit of the team.

[today we both, having interests in psychology - she being trained and me being a layman, are thinking of joint experiments in a key area in our KM that we will target - such that we dont need approvals (rather rejections) from the top, and then showcase the results directly]

Counter-intuitive pricing

2006-11-27T14:14:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we were out to Spencer's plaza (Chennai's oldest mall) and walked into the cute Reynolds showroom to grab some pencils. whilst looking around i remembered always wanting to get one of those small whiteboards to keep notes. i quickly found a small kit inclusive of a marker, a duster. one salesman was standing right above me (this kit was hung on the lowest rung) and immediately said "Ninety Nine rupees". i wasnt sure i wanted to pay that much. so i put it back and then realised that there was a bigger whiteboard kit hung right beside the smaller one. the moment i picked it up the 'friendly' salesman announced "Seventy Five Rupees"... i wasnt sure i heard him right. the smaller one is 99/- and the bigger one was 75/-??? yes, he said - the smaller board was of better finish and thicker and meant only for desktop placement while the larger one was thinner and capable of being hung on the wall. i immediately picked the larger one.

this however brought an interesting issue to my mind - how many potential customers would companies lose just because they havent put up a clear indication of the price/value on the packaging (the price on these whiteboards were behind and were almost invisible - especially when you are not too relaxed !).

do you think you have similar experiences to share?

Chennai to Bangalore by Road

2006-11-08T18:35:00.000+05:30

This is a post about my recent driving experience from chennai to bangalore on the national highways.. its mostly positive as you will make out!

I always had dreamed of driving long distances and just listening to lovely music... time came for it to become a reality 2 weeks ago. i had to resort to this option due to heavy demand on other forms of transportation (given local long holidays). i was somehow more inclined to do this as i also planned to take along my wife and kid (yes! he is now 18months old and wants to drive already).

As the date approached i did a lot of talking around and googling to figure out the best route and other tips. One blog post helped me quite a bit, from Lavanya at: http://chennai.metblogs.com/archives/2006/07/post_4.phtml.

we left home at around 10.45am and made our way along the nh-4 bypass from tambaram to the poonamallee high road. the bypass itself is a nice stretch - the only problem being that only one side of the road is ready, so you have to deal with vehicles from the opposite side on your lane!

the stretch from poonamallee high road till some distance towards sriperumbudur is a bit bad with work in progress. after that the road smoothens and into 4 lanes! and it was mostly a breeze from here on. the road is excellent - i couldnt spot any odd spots on the road which could hurt a fast driver.

as lavanya rightly pointed out (and i had it in mind, thanks to her post) at a number of places i found vehicles coming on the wrong side of the neatly divided highway. some of them were stupid enough not even to put their headlights on! hence its advisable not to drive too fast on the right end of the road especially if you are following another vehicle closely.

there is also the problem of people and smaller vehicles crossing suddenly near town connections. so that is another thing to slow down for.

i took the nh-4, which then branched off into nh-46 and then joined nh-7 near krishnagiri. the junction at nh-7 is a bit of a nightmare, especially for high-speed first-timers on this road. i could only make out that bangalore was a right turn at this junction only after i hit the junction (the signboard is placed below a flyover and is visible clearly only after you hit the turn!!) - in this process i nearly ran into a bus that was coming in from bangalore!

the patch from krishnagiri to hosur on nh-7 is extremely beautiful with its soft ups and down and straight stretches across the hills. i could only wish this stretch had been longer - because the moment you hit hosur you have hit dirt, literally. the usual city traffic and mess catches up!!

all in all it was a great drive and i couldnt imagine that this was possible in india at all. i really hope all the grand plans of the golden quadrilateral and other north-south corridors are done soon. there are more people with cars on the road and if the connectivity between cities is like this it would be a great alternative transportation!

hats off to all mothers!!!!!!!!!

2006-01-11T12:30:00.000+05:30

hats off to all mothers.........

having seen the mother of my child cope up with all the stress that new motherhood brings and also living in the same house as my parents… I cannot help but tip my (non-existent) hat to all have-been mothers (including mine); new-mothers and soon-to-be mothers for the amazing character and courage and strength they have in dealing with such tough, but extremely joyful, situations!!

you are simply awesome :)

a new year and a new beginning....

2006-01-02T15:23:00.000+05:30

firstly,

Wishing you all a very happy and successful new year 2006.... may your ambitions see the light of day, may you find the love you long for, may you hear only good news and .... (you get the picture :) )

secondly,

a new year bring a new change, already... shortly (read couple of weeks) i will be moving out of my current role in KM to a role within business. its a mixed feeling - moving from something that is only considered theoretically important to something that's practically important.

a lot of unlearning and learning to be done. but its gotta be done....

Cheated by theatres--why go there at all?? [A Rant]

2005-12-21T16:09:00.000+05:30

Recently me and family went (after a lot of delay and braving pouring rain) to see Harry Potter – Goblet of fire at the Sathyam Cinema, chennai. The idea was to enjoy the beautiful special effect and sound effects in the theatre – and also a fun outing for the kids.

One aberration that I immediately noticed was a very glaring cut in the beginning of the movie. Someome from the ministry of magic declared “let the games begin” for the world games to begin (the preview of the amazing stadium was fabulous and mind blowing) and guess what happens?

The scene jarringly cuts to show havoc in the tent-houses outside the stadium! What happened next? All ‘magically’ cut.

Given that this is one scene that was cut, who knows how many more we missed during the entire movie (it seems a 'funeral' scene for cedric also was missing...anyway first time watchers don’t know what is getting cut). Only when we see the movie on DVD we might realize how the management actually looted us. This show ran for around 2hours excluding break time. If you have watched HP-4 wherever in the world, can you share what were your movie running times?? I don’t think we can take this kind of BS lying down. The running time as per websites is close to 2.30hrs. so where did the 30minutes of the movie go???

I would rather spend Rs 10 seeing a chopped pirated version than spend Rs 70 seeing it in a theater (excluding all the other opportunity costs involved!!)

[Mind you, this isn’t the first time I have noticed this happening. I have seen it happening in a hindi movie ‘kal ho na ho’ where a theater in Bangalore actually chopped off a vital portion (about a girl being adopted) – which is important in later scenes!!!]

driving performance

2005-11-24T14:50:00.000+05:30

a thought that came to me while i was riding to office on my bike...

motorists have to keep their minds so alert on the road - keep an eye on the oncoming vehicles, vehicles behind, road conditions, oncoming objects (especially impt in india - 2, 4 legged and winged creatures) etc.

apart from the mental strain for the duration of the drive, on an overall basis would this brain useage (exercise) be helpful in better utilisation of the brain? do motorists outperform their peers in certain brain tasks?

was thinking it might be a good topic for research :)

swimming to office

2005-11-09T15:39:00.000+05:30

chennai has always had water problems - this year is no different, except if you look closely. its the excess of water thatis causing a problem!

i hate to come to office on my 2 wheeler in such dull and wet weather. if you think i am cribbing too much, have a look at the road that i normally take to office:

and what you see is actually water that is overflowing a wetland marsh, so if you happen to miss either side of the road you can bid goodbye to your vehicle (and maybe your life!).

so i smartly avoid this road now and instead take a longer and slightly better route. but my problem of avoiding being wet when i reach office is still pretty relevant - what with self-centered guys in bigger vehicles not bothering about whom all they spray road water on!

all in all - a tough time.

my interests

2005-10-25T14:30:00.000+05:30

my interests
Originally uploaded by s.r.i.n.i..

these are the books that i have been playing around with recently (there are more which are not part of this picture :) )..

they reflect each a section of my interests - and interestingly there is none directly connected with work/role: KM!! go figure :)

TAG response :)

2005-10-19T11:16:00.000+05:30

Oh well! I am tagged again; and by Rebecca again. I know she thinks quite highly of this humble guy – but a tag means that I end up facing a wall – in terms of whom to pass it on to, given my small circle! Anyway I cant let her down – so here goes (sorry Rebecca, I didn’t take your earlier tag request – couldn’t think of any responses :) )

Ten years ago: I had completed one year in my first job (still in the same company!) – that was the good part; the bad part was that it was the beginning of a serious backache problem that probably started shaping the way I think today.

Five years ago: was a great time, just married and had a wonderful assignment for a client in Antwerp, Belgium. For us it was an extended honeymoon as we savored the rich culture of many European cities. That time period still lives fresh in our memory!

One year ago: we took the tough call of leaving our well-settled home & friends in Bangalore to move to Chennai, to live with my parents. It was also the time we learnt of the pending arrival of our little angel!!

Five snacks: Cookies, IceCream, Indian savories, Indian sweets, Chocolates.

Five songs I know all the words to: oops! I don’t think I know a single song entirely! but believe me, i love almost all types of music and songs!!

Five things I would do with $100 million: probably just keep around a million or two for my generation and the next. Leave some with my family. Rest would probably be invested into organizations working for the benefit of life (nature, ecology etc)

Five things I would never wear: boot-cut jeans, sleeveless T-shirts, cargos, flower-printed trousers & shirts!

Five favorite TV shows: yeh jo hai zindagi (India), X-files, Ally McBeal, Buffy (earlier parts), Yes boss (India)

Five biggest joys: My little angel and his antics, my photostream being appreciated on flickr, a smile on my wife’s and parents faces, just looking at all of nature’s creations.

Five favorite toys: iMac (old model); digicam (new!); music system; iPOD (tho I don’t own one ;)).

Five people to pass this on to: I will take Jen’s approach – especially when I am really unsure of the audience. I could tag the other Rebecca & Kim & Nimmy.. but I leave it to them!

the social channel limit

2005-10-14T13:53:00.000+05:30

I am currently lapping up the rich thoughts in the book ‘Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell. There are many interesting bits that I started thinking about – hopefully they all will see the pixels on your monitor – here is one that crossed my mind yesterday…

Towards the end Malcolm writes about the natural limitations of the human brain – in terms of memory and social and emotional channels. The 7 numbered telephone system came about due to the fact that human memory fails beyond 7 numbers and there are more chances of wrong numbers. Early human dwellers on average used to be around 150 people in a group – not a coincidence – this is a number that is also scientifically proven to relate to the human brain size to maintain social interactions on a personal basis with others. The moment a group goes beyond 150 there is chaos and the group starts losing the personal touch and informal peer pressure gets loosened. [He cites the example of a company Gore – which follows this rule, out of their trials and errors, in all business groupings].

In another thread I read somewhere that the human brain has been growing in size over its evolution. Here is an image from http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm.

Now my mind tries to tie both these threads together: as the human population grew, the need to ‘know’ more people closely has also proportionately grown [especially modern times – see the pressures of blogging? ;))]. Nature had put in a limitation to avoid overloading the brain, but the need was constantly there and humans forced evolution to take care of it.

Playing devil’s advocate to my thoughts:
But why has the brain growth tapered down – when currently there is a huge overload of information and social networks?

Final thoughts to ponder upon…
why are mobile numbers (in India) 10 digit? And its not very difficult to remember them. Heck! I have to remember my 16 digit credit card numbers all the time.

My son's first post!!!

2005-10-14T09:56:00.000+05:30

Let me know if you dont understand it..... :)
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brain on auto-pilot

2005-10-12T16:00:00.000+05:30

something strange:

i noticed (and remembered) that most of the times when i want to type some words, my brain and hands automatically replace (whilst typing) with other words!!

one that i caught today: while typing 'inflow' in a couple of places 'inform' has gone instead!! whether its the brain or the hands on autopilot, i am pondering!!

wonder what's happening!! any similar stories from fellow bloggers?

the marriage of the gods

2005-09-20T15:21:00.000+05:30

the marriage of the gods
Originally uploaded by s.r.i.n.i..

one of the photos i took during this marriage. a part of the very serious and holy function that takes place in our marriages.

interesting ad tactic

2005-09-20T13:48:00.000+05:30

i received an email from samsung marketing and i found it interesting enough to have a look further than i would have normally.

i think its again the power of story-telling at play here. it interesting to read through a story than a page of specs.

this is the first time i am seeing such a mailer ad. nice!

on the same line of thought (storytelling) i somehow dont buy into those TV ads where some xyz housewife will rave about how wonderful the dove soap is on her skin and stuff. would you???

speeding - vague thoughts

2005-09-16T14:39:00.000+05:30

was just thinking how the behaviour of 'speeding' on the road might actually be primed by circumstances.

for two days consecutively i had to get into the chennai city (for a relative's wedding) and the roads that i had to take were some of the busiest and widest roads in the city (plenty more than where i live and go to work). and due to movement of the vehicles and the flow i had to be at speeds that i normally wouldnt cross. i had no issues with that as all of us at that moment were at that speed or higher! coming back in the night also added to the speeds constantly being quite above normal.

today when i rode to office on my normal (less traffic flow, narrow roads) route i couldnt help notice that i was speeding a lot more and overtaking more vehicles than usual. and i have a strong feeling its because of the 2 day stint in the city.

so.. is this the reason why a lot of bikers/cars overspeed in the narrow parts of the localities? could be!

now i feel that its better for everyone if the roads are all battered and messed up - at least the vehicles dont overspeed. its the most effective method of speed control; more than any administrative mechanism so far!!

angel feet

2005-09-08T11:40:00.000+05:30

friends, fellow earthlings, fellow bloglings..

in the photo alongside you see the primary reason that my mind is diverted off posts for now..

the other reason being photography itself - now that i am stabilising on that, i think i will be able to get back into action here soon.

shifting minds..

2005-08-17T21:28:00.000+05:30

Timothy Basak speaks to Srini on the perceived lack of updation of his blog...

the posts seems to be dwindling? yes.

and why is that? cos i have gotten pulled deeply into my other re-newed passion.

what is that? digital photography.

and what do you shoot? anything that is interesting, typically nature and nature and nature

are these shared? ya.. check the link to the right for the images on flickr.com

what happens to your devoted blog readers? maybe i can interest them in photography.. they never found much interesting here anyways :)

then what happens to their own blogs? umm. have to think about that.

playing with numbers

2005-08-16T17:37:00.000+05:30

was just literally playing with numbers on employee statistics in my organisation and got some interesting outcomes.

based on number of years in the organisation i stand within 5% of the organisation
based on overall experience in this industry i stand within 10% of the organisation

aha.. good for negotiating with HR next time around? what say?

[this will portray a striking contrast to those who read my 3rd-i blog on my introspective thoughts on numbers!]

Ways of learning...

2005-08-16T16:12:00.000+05:30

found an interesting post on Dave Pollard's blog about learning based on the book Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild, by Susan McCarthy.

a nice takeaway:

Learning can occur through various means including ......

Apprenticeship ("Watch me, and then you try it")
Being told (listening, reading)
Classical conditioning (associative learning -- "Aha, this always seems to correlate with this")
Coaching ("Next time try this")
Concept learning (learning to learn, putting two and two together -- "Aha, I know what might work")
Emulation ("I see what he's doing, but I think I know a better way to achieve the same end")
Imitation ("I can do that -- watch")
Latent learning ("Well, that's interesting, but it's not immediately useful")
Local enhancement ("I see. That must be the right thing to do")
Model/rival learning ("The teacher is showing the other student how to do that. I get it. And I could do it better")
Observational enhancement ("I see. I know what I could do with that")
Operant conditioning (reward learning -- "Give me another doughnut and I'll do it again")
Playing
Practice
Question & answer (interviewing)
Role modeling ("Wow, that's good. Can I try now?")
Serendipitous learning ("Oops -- hey, that's interesting, we can use that")
Social facilitation ("Hey, that's fun -- you mean it's also useful?")
Stimulus enhancement ("That got my attention, maybe I'll try it sometime")
Trial and error

read the entire post here

trust..

2005-08-11T11:01:00.000+05:30

yesterday one of my colleagues brought out a very strange fact about the way our team works. if we as knowledge evangelists are not able to trust and collaborate with each other as well as our technical development team, then what right do we have to expect the rest of the organisation to do it!

another creative piece..

2005-08-10T14:39:00.000+05:30

found on blogger buzz blog.

there's so much creativity out there!! wish we could send out corporate survey requests in such a free-informal manner!

Smilin' nuts!!!

2005-08-09T15:25:00.000+05:30

I conduct a KM introduction session to the people who join my company’s facility. As part of that I cover a lot of people. A large part of the session is interactive where I engage them in thought provoking discussions – sometimes playing the devil’s advocate for KM. Over all the time in this campus now I would have touched upwards 1000 of people. All that is fine.

Now I have a problem – I am not the typical first-guy-to-smile-at-others type of a person. I might even avoid e-t-e contacts. I respond to a smile, though. Every other person I see in the campus nowadays might have been in my session and I don’t know how to manage it! Should I start smiling at every one I see, at the cost of being labeled a nut? Or status quo? Its tough going against ingrained behaviour…

a great time to remember friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-08-08T15:00:00.000+05:30

in line with the theme for this day/week, i just thought i would jot down all those who crossed my path (friendly!!) across my life's horizon...

[only the first names are listed :) and in chronological order.. fonts differ for a reason. women go first!]

Aparna

Neena

Ranjini

Sherna

May

Ratnangi

Shweta

Sangeeta

Sonal

Beena

Carmen

Jackie

Preeti

Rajeshwari

Sriranjini

Kiranmaye

Gayatri

Kripa

Deepali

Subhashini

Aparna

Deepika

Meenal

Nirmala

Jayashree

Minal

Shobita

Amrita

Divya

Subha

Anu

Meena

Rebecca

@glitter

Rebecca

Jen

Arun

Vikrant

Bhavesh

Amitabh

Rajesh

Malay

Niranjan

Nitin

Gajanan

Dileep

Dinesh

Rana

Yatin

Sanjay

Ajay

Rahul

Titus

Angan

Dilip

Nitin

Nikhil

Vijay

Vikas

Kapinder

Jeswanth

Kirankumar

Kuchel

Sinnakrishnan

Maulik

Franky

Arupam

Thomas

Dinesh

Sriram

Subbu

Rakesh

Vinod

Sathish

Narayanswamy

Sunil

Shiva

Sathish

Srini (no! not me ;) )

If you feel that i missed you out, do let me know!! :) :)

museum for packaged goods!!

2005-08-08T13:45:00.000+05:30

this is an interesting website, contains online pictures from US' packaged goods earlier this century.

was wondering if this idea has been tried out in the Indian context. i would love to see the packaging we grew up with getting preserved for posterity!!

another nice note from flickr

2005-08-08T11:43:00.000+05:30

this is about payments for upgrading to a 'pro' account:

happy birthday

2005-08-04T21:58:00.000+05:30

this one is for nimmy (note: it is not a bird!!! :) ) - why??? cos today was her birthday!!! Happy birthday == have a great life ahead!!

Yay...Apple hits it again

2005-08-04T16:21:00.000+05:30

one of my favourite product companies, Apple, is back in action with its creativity.

check out the new Mighty Mouse - they had already done some nice things to the touchpad of their latest laptops, but this one is compatible with Windoze too!

i always felt that they are one of the very few design teams that actually get things right from the users' perspective...

and thats why i am an avid fan and a proud owner too :).

3 Cheers for the Apple design team.

nice note..

2005-08-03T13:44:00.000+05:30

a very nice note from the flickr team after their recent update:

"We've added some pages (and changed some existing ones) to help you explore Flickr's most interesting photos. Before you start though, you might want to take your phone off the hook, send your boss to an executive training session and block off some time on your schedule, because we don't think you're going to walking away from your screen any time soon. Beautiful, amazing, moving, striking - explore and discover some of Flickr's Finest."

for nimmy...

2005-08-02T21:42:00.000+05:30

as promised.. one more to tease you :) (in case you already didnt see flickr and anyways this is not there :) )
This is Mr. sunbird - very tough one to catch - always extra active and alert. had to shoot this from quite a distance and crop the picture.

a lovely flower

2005-07-28T19:57:00.000+05:30

...to all my lovely blog friends - may their lives too blossom as beautifully...

birdie galore

2005-07-27T21:07:00.000+05:30

for my bird pix fans heres another of the cute ones spotted and shot in our garden.. this one is a 'spotted munia' (no! he was already spotted before he was spotted by me!!!)....

they won??

2005-07-25T13:57:00.000+05:30

if the terrorists had plans of just spreading mayhem in london, i think they succeeded. the police go all out to kill an innocent man, posthumously proven, assuming him to be one of the perpetrators. of course the police are heavily stressed out over the past 2 weeks, but see the result...

now the people wont know who to fear- the faceless terrorists or the plainclothes police!! so, mayhem rules and the terrorists have succeeded. or have they?

mum's

2005-07-21T21:56:00.000+05:30

check out a sample below of some cool hand made authentic indian artwork...)

lovely...

2005-07-20T22:23:00.000+05:30

caught a kingfisher in our garden.. isnt s/he lovely??

this is a cropped image - had to remove some of the foreground clutter (which was to avoid disturbing the fella)..

the mind rules?

2005-07-20T14:12:00.000+05:30

interesting research on human mind control over machines (it wasnt enough that we controlled them physically now we want to control them mentally ;))

they have found some small correlations between the intented thoughts of the sample participants and the machines' outputs. though it may not mean anything. yet!

another striking best part is that a combination of male & female partners who were romantically involved produced extraordinary results (7 times their individual results). are they 'united' as one, with much more capacity than an individual?

interesting!!!

a lull..due to a storm!

2005-07-15T11:47:00.000+05:30

to my few (heavily stressed word) readers, i was on a business trip to the neighboring city of bangalore. the city used to be my home for some years until a year back. so it was fun. weather was nice - cloudy mostly, drizzled at times. never mind the weather, the best part was meeting up with my old friends. the friends who have gelled together as a family.

we all worked together on a project for a european telecom giant and our destinies got tied in ever since. we had a nice dinner meeting at woody's close to where i used to stay. it was fun. we tend to be the noisiest table whenever and wherever we meet.

bangalore's amazing traffic ensured that we all started dinner an hour late and going upto 10.30pm! a progressive city indeed.

i duly picked up our family's favorite brand of freshly ground coffee (no, not a branded one). picked up rechargeable batteries for the new digicam. could have shopped for more things but there wasnt enough time.

body has taken some beating due to the train strain (lack of sleep) but i feel back to normal today. so the posts will start flowing too :)

finally....

2005-07-08T11:21:00.000+05:30

after a lot of pondering, wondering, stammering, clamouring and other 'ings' took the plunge. leveraged on the company scheme and got myself a new toy for my passion. hopefully after reading that post you are in sync with what i am talking about ;).

i bought a canon digicam and am already experimenting with its potential...its mind-boggling :).

will post some good ones as i travel along the photo-spectrum. here is a sample...

Update:
----------
just for the record... here is the older analog canon that has faithfully given me the best pictures in its 6 years of service.
wondering what to do with it?

a good food for thought

2005-07-06T13:34:00.000+05:30

yesterday, in the corporate induction, i was talking to the lateral recruits on the concern of sharing knowledge and becoming dispensable in the organisation. thankfully there was a decent amount of discussion and debate on that.

suddenly a thought came to my mind and i used that to trigger some thoughts. i gave the example of vivek paul leaving wipro, but his post of CEO being replaced by a leadership team. no CEO anymore!

so.. could it mean that he had done enough of sharing with his reportees and thereby became dispensable for premji? or does it mean that he needed a team to replace him-no one person could not match him on all fronts?

i didnt have an answer. it could be argued any which way-but the point i concluded to the team was that whatever you do in terms of sharing to the organisation, you cannot be replaced in entirety. your expertise, your experiences, your intuition, your reactions will remain yours and no one (except maybe with some cloning breakththrough) can replace you.

vivek paul

2005-07-06T13:33:00.000+05:30

just another opportunist making his move. so why all the fuss??

a pathetic contrast...

2005-07-01T15:01:00.000+05:30

men and women working hard, picking up huge heavy stones on their head, bags of sand, digging pits, facing upto 40degC (104degF), 90% humidity, earning maybe 10s of rupees per day, maybe a couple of 100s saved, tomorrow the same work.

barely 300 metres away -

men and women (or rather guys & girls) working, doing a lot of thinking, finding it difficult to carry anything more than a cup of coffee, comforting 24degC (75degF), 50% humidity, earning maybe 1000s of rupees per day, maybe a couple of 100s of 1000s stacked away in some place, all bags packed for a 6month jaunt to the US: add some more 100s of 1000s to their savings.

the rich keep getting richer!

hazards of blogging??

2005-06-29T21:50:00.000+05:30

ever since i started blogging, i find that my thought processes on finding something interesting start working on how to blog this?. what sentences i would be putting in the post etc. i am a bit worried that it is basically changing my thought process. am i starting to lose grips over my thought process cos i am going to blog it anyways?? is the analysis part of my thought process getting lost just because of the newly ingrained process of blogging??

not only blogging, flickr, the photosharing landscape wherein i have been seeing wonderful photos taken by amateurs and pros alike, has gotten me another thought process. now whenever i 'see' something interesting i think - how would i take a snap? what will i name the shared version? will people be seeing it?

i am not sure i want to continue blogging if its going to take over my thinking!!

do my fellow-bloggers/photo-bloggers feel the same way?? or am i going overboard??!!!

new way to tap into people, literally!!!

2005-06-23T09:44:00.000+05:30

can we do some research on these lines to figure out why people behave the way they do in the work arena.

what prevents people from sharing their wisdom. what get people to using others. what inhibits collaboration. what builds trust. whats motivating people....

this way erroneous and biased surveys can be done away with!

wonderful advtg concept..

2005-06-23T09:36:00.000+05:30

imprinted advertisements on the sands of beaches! whats next??!!!

check this.

dont think it will work on the marina or the chowpatty any day :) !! but a wonderful concept nonetheless-and more so since the site claims that beach litter has reduced dramatically becos of these ads.

---
how about edible ads in food? though i wouldnt like it - i am sure advertisers & manufacturers will be more than happy to get in (the food). imagine opening a pack of Lays and eating each wafer that has an ad about the other wonderful flavours!