Remembering The Poet

When I Was in college I used to write a lot of poems. 3-4 Years of Work Life and Poet in me was somewhat left behind in time . I called him Back yesterday Eve and Together both of us come up with this.

DEDICATED TO A VERY SPECIAL LADY IN MY LIFE

You Are My Sun

Because my world revolve around you
You Are My Moon
Because I think about you all night and stay awake
You Are My Star
Because My eyes Twinkle whenever I think about you

You Are My Sky
Because I am never able to reach you

You Are My Wardrobe
Because you know all shades of my persona

You Are My Washerman
Because you wash all my cares away

You Are My Policeman
Because you keep a Watch on me ;-)

You Are My Electricity
Because you never fail to shock me

You Are My Supermarket
Because You always have Everything i want

You Are My Neighborhood Panwalla
Because you give me even when I offer you nothing in exchange

You Are My Internet Connectivity
Because I connect to my self through you

You Are My Bank
Because I have deposited my everything with you

You Are My Stock Portfolio
Because I expect a lot of ROI From you

You Are My Pastry
Because I can have you Even after an Eight course gourmet meal ;-)

You Are My ENO
Because i know that the very moment u will come all turbulence will be Gone :-)



Now Never Think that you mean nothing to me ..Ok ?

For The reders of my blog : :

• No I can't tell you who is She , At least Not yet :-)
  
• Now you know what kind of a poet i was :P .Well I used to write some serious stuff also but that never attracted any applause or audience .

Prayer !!!

Dear God

I have never been a very releigious person in my life . but today i find myself helpless against something .

Someone i Love and carefor is in need of your attention and Blessings . Please Grant then their wish . They Deserve it . Please .

[ If you read this , please take a moment to say a little prayer . I heard It works ]

thanks

Prashant


P.S : Image Courtesy Musicorso

For Webex World Is Not Flat Yet

People don’t change when you tell them there is a better option. They change when they conclude they have no other option.”

:-Michael Mandelbaum quoted in The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman, pg 462

Today at office I was looking for some web based remote screen sharing products to help my team trouble shoot the problems in our software installed at client location in Singapore . I called a friend of mine for advice , his one line recommendation was WebEx. He was using Webex for some time and was very happy with results . I value this guy's opinion so half of the sale was done for WebEx even before i even saw their website.

I went to India page of WebEx .it was a professional looking website . i was impressed and straight away decided to evaluate the software . WebEx was one step closer to sale . They asked me to register to use evaluation version . It was a pretty much simple and easy registration which asked for very relevant questions .But halfway through the registration i discovered something amusing

The trial they were offering was only for 20 minutes. Yes only 20 minutes . They expected me to evaluate & decide about a web-based enterprise grade product in 20 minute ? How on earth this company is in business? I grew suspicious of something and i jumped to US page of WebEx . Result was exactly the as I expected ,On US website of WebEx they were offering a trial version for 14 days . you can see this in these two attached screen shots.

As an Indian Techie i was hurt to see this discrimination . if you find this offensive or disturbing and you feel like cursing MNC and Firangi folks for this discrimination .than hold your anger for few minutes, you are In for some more facts .

Webex is headed by an Indian .

Mr. Kiran Datar [according to their website , according to wikipedia their CEO is Subrah S. lyar.] .In news section of their site they have boasted about their India Connection and touted how big an opportunity India as an emerging market represent and how they have plan to capture this market with 20 minute demo . I can understand why they are proud of their India connection .A lot of indians are at senior position in various US Based IT companies .This india connection helps WebEx to close a deal fast . Fact is that they are comfortable using india for the commercial gain in US but they don't think indain Techie worthy of there server sapce and bandwidth . I find it pathetic

We live in a Flat World ,At least that's what Mr.Friedman want me to believe . A steady stream of Advertisement and promotion keep telling me that Customer is king . They keep telling me that they will move mountain to make me happy . They don't differentiate among customer on the basis of color,cast,creed, race geography or any thing. All customer are equal for them . but are they ?

We all know that this is not true. All customer are not equal some are more equal than other .

I knew it when Air Hostess delay providing me water bottle in Air India but whole bunch of them spring to action when a Firangi White man ask for something . from Smile to the amount of drink in glass ,everything is Extra large for Mr.White .

I knew it when i walk in to an uptown bar where they don't mention cost in menu and i ask cost of three things before ordering one .

Truth is i don't mind all this very much . As a human being all of us are prone to biases and its only natural if these biases reflect in our dealing with our customer at our workplace also .

Thats one reason i used to be so happy in cyberspace . At least a website never makes that discrimination. Website is totally oblivious to all that . website reflects the company policies and companies don't diffrentaite among customers. At least not on record . Specially in Hi-Tech Products , in products where your target customer is a highly qualified IT professional i don't think any differentiation will be of any help to anyone.

But some Companies do it . in a very subtle way . i found web ex in same league . its unfortunate that an Indian don't find Indian customer worthy of something which he is giving free to rest of the world . i know chances of closing a sale is less in India , i know some folks might use the service for long time by creating multiple account one after another . But still i don't think insulting Indian customers with 20 minute demo is a good step .

coming back to the quote i wrote in the start of this post . i seriously wait for the day when My country became big enough a market that comapnies like WebEx can't even think of doing these type of cheap stunt . when our customer won't tolerate this . when [like china ] we can tell companies what is allowed in inda and what is not .

I don't know who read my blog but if you happen to know someone in Webex please ask them to read this and correct their mistake . I for once will not be recomnending webex to anyone anymore .

Creative Advertisement

I am a big fan of Creative Advertising . A well conceived and designed Ad is best way to Attract audience and ensure a recall . Like every good thing in life a Good Advertisement is never in abundance . its scarcity make it value able .

I am attracted toward this medium Since my college days ,I always made it a point to participate in Ad mad Event when we used to go to Antaragini (Cult Fest of IIT Kanur ) .but lately there is a decline in the Quality of advertisement . with the rise of text link based advertisement on web there is very little room for creativity left in ads here

that is why it is always a refreshing to see a Good Creative Ad . when Jason of 37signals recently posted some real good work in creative ads it was treat for me

i am reproducing it here,for you to see !!

Some Great Inovation in something very basic as Shopping bags

(C) all rights acknowledged .

Improbable Collapse : Truth About 9/11 Media Cover UP

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"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality."

- Alighieri Dante

I am not a Political person . I for the most of the Time have nothing usefull to say about policitical event around me . I see politicians as a neccesary evil and i am happy to pay the ransom if they leave me in peace .

But Once in a while I [and i guess you too ] feel like revolting and destroying everything around you . and chage the system for good .

I was reading Tara's blog . in a post she amde today she linked to a Video on google .Its Called Improbable Collapse .It's about the Event of 9/11 .Improbable Collapse is the first film to thoroughly review the evidence for WTC demolitions from a scientific perspective. and conclusion ??

9/11 was an insider's Job .

Each one of us was effected by that tragedy . even though i have never been to US but still i can understand the agony of Families who lost their Loved One in 9/11 . All along we cursed laden and Taliban for this henious Act . But what if he was not alone in this ? what if there was an Hidden hand behined this act . What if we were feeded with this propoganda so that Bush can justify his own agenda of Attacking other countries to control Oil Fields .

Improbable Collapse examines the increasingly widespread notion that the World Trade Center buildings were brought down using explosives. Force of collision and Heat of Jet fuel Fire was not enough to melt the high quality steel used in the construction of WTC . Even if that was enough it can not expalin the way the whole building was collapsed with in its foot print .Using highly scintific method scientist have shown that Pan Cake Theory , spreade by Bush and Gang is just a house of card .

I was infuriated to see the video . i was rivetd to my desk for an hour . how can they do it to their own people ? a Cover up of that magnitude ? thousands of people lost their loved one in this tragedy and Bush Government used this Tragedy to to jsutify its dracounian measures like
Pattriot Act ,War on Terror and Pre emptive Strike on IRAQ .

I want you to watch this video . so what if its an hour long video , so what if you have got work to do , code to write , E-mails to write , Shopping to do . As a citizen of free world who loves to remain free its our duty to stop this madness and make sure when its time to decide we decide in full knowledge .

For once i have a opinion , for once i want an explanation ,For once i am not neutral

And Time Can Do So Much

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

My Ex roommate and College Buddy Rohan Arora got married last Saturday . it was a memorable ceremony , got a chance to meet a lot of friends from College . kinda nostalgic to catch up with the Gang . All dressed up like a Fashion parade [i wore a Sherwani , it's a weird outfit ,special the chudidaar part of it ] and felt like going to a Farzi marriage .

Once in the car park and with snacks and Beer we remembered Sutta meetings for Strike planing at College Gate ,drinking beer in "contri" [rohan was paying this time ] . (still ) Talking about those Girls and how they are married to some guy who is no better than us [ arrange marriage you know ,No Background Check , We were sure he was worse than us , You agree with me . don't you ?] , we were sure she must be realising her mistake now [are you ?]

Damn. No one has info about HER . I hope she is still single [I am , just in case , you are reading this :) ]

Strange what few years can do to a person . Some of the Folks were bald ,some were silent ,some still got funtush after a single Beer , Everyone Agreed that In Delhi Girls always do a overkill of Makeup & look horrible [as if we are Beauty expert, so what if we don't look like one .after a beer sometime we are Rocket Scientist ]

Most of the guys were heavy by a few pounds since i last saw them . some were with their better Half and were under a chronic fear that We [read ,Bachelors] will tell the truth to their wife . some played safe and came alone. To my great surprise a Brat among us was concerned about Diapers of his baby and an Eternal late comer were worried about reaching home in time .

One thing i learned is that if you are newly married don't even think of buying CAR . people will always see it as "That Gift " even if you are the one who is paying the EMI ,and god help you if it carries a licence plate of your home town . It was a refreshing to see that our the Fighter guy Vivek was still the same . no suit no change and same enthu still the old self .i love him for that .

Time take its toll both in body and spirit . Inside the suit some guys were New Men they were different but i expected that . I still miss the old Tribal warmth but still i feel good that all my folks are well settled and Happy .

Hope to see guys you at next ceremony from our gang [There are still some trees to be chopped down]

I wish Good Luck & Happiness to Rohan and Ashima , Godspeed .

Trying SlideShare

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Yesterday I signed up as a Beta Tester for Slideshare . [Thanks to Amit & Jon for sending the invite] .

Slide Share is a free service launched by Uzanto for sharing presentations and slide shows. You can upload presentations, tag them, embed them into your blog,search presentations uploaded by other users . In short its a perfect solution to circumvent the email attachment way of sharing your presentation . you can read a more extensive review of service here .

I am impressed by slideshare . I admired the Ease of sign up , use and sharing it offer This is what we come to expect from folks @ uzanto . Though it still lacks in some functionality like Custom Animations are lost (you only get one slide at a time as a single object), and downloading the hosted presentation . still as they are in Beta yet so Its really a neat Application by any yard stick.

On a second thought Exclusion of These feature might be a conscious choice as Jon is a Getting Real Fan and Know that "It is human nature to be unsatisfied ".

TechCrunch described Slideshare as a YouTube of PowerPoint and i agree with him . With wirtely and Google Spreadsheet in their stable Google Guys will be looking for a Application to complete the G Office jigsaw . In fact they have started the process of Backward integration . Google is famous for snapping promising start up in Beta . So stage is set for slideshare . Good Luck for Team Uzanto .

Godspeed

P.S : "I am trying to embed My Presentation on "Web 2.0 & Power of Default" using Slide share . I used this presentation during my session at BarCamp Delhi . Surprisingly that's where i meet Jon for the First time . is it just a co-incidence ? May Be May Be Not ."

Social Networking??

“Permanent full-time position for a personal social coordinator for a New York-based web designer. Your primary responsibility will be managing my accounts with various online social networking sites including, but not limited to, Friendster, LinkedIn, Tribe, Orkut, Ryze, Spoke, ZeroDegrees, Ecademy, RealContacts, Ringo, MySpace, Yafro, EveryonesConnected, Friendzy, FriendSurfer, Tickle, Evite, Plaxo, Squiby, and WhizSpark. ,

…………..
There's even room to grow in the position:

Future duties may include discouraging companies and individuals from starting new social networking sites so that additional staff won't be necessary in the future. Past employment as a bouncer, "heavy", or hired goon may be helpful in this regard. Benefits include addition as my friend in all of the social networking sites I belong to.

:Jason Kottkee in Being your friend is hard work

In Early 2004 When ace Blogger Jason published this post . I was amused and didn’t think much about it. I thought this is the (small) price of being a celebrity . But three years down the line I am paying the price but I am (at least until now ) less than a celebrity .

On the last count I subscribed to 6 Social/Professional Networking sites ,12 mailing list and not to mention a daily dose of Digg ,reddit, Flickr, slashdot,gigaom, emergic, venturewoods etc. Sometime I have to skip my lunch or read email from home to keep up with all the action.

Strangely I don’t know how does all this got started and snowballed. I kept receiving invitation my friends .Out of courtesy or curiosity I kept accepting them and kept feeding this menace. Initially I was very excited to see all those weird request in my inbox . I was too happy when a girl from Brazil add herself in my FAN list @ orkut . I thought she must have checked my photo album J .Never before in my whole life I was so close to having a date ..or so I thought L . but I discovered that she does it for every one of her contact .

But now its time to do some math. What is the over all value addition this “get to know “ craze offer ? And how can I optimize the ROI?

First a little bit of book keeping .

In my previous assignment I have closed 3 significant deals through Linkedin . In Mobile Monday 25 people from my various networks were there including One of the prominent guest . I am in touch with few VCs and a lot of Domain experts whom I meet first time at these sites . and I am in touch with some of the most interesting folks because of them .

Not a bad score card I guess ,But i think i could have done better . how ? actually i waisted a lot of time understanding the very idea of how it work . After almost two year of using these sites I discovered few rules of game .

at the risk of being overly simplistic and redundant ..here they are

#1 Find out the core activity/agenda of the network.

Every networking site will offer sun moon and milky way to you . don’t trust, find out from your Real World Friends what this site is being used for ?

Linked in was started as a sales referral site now it’s a De Facto Destination for recruitment of Mid to Higher level Executives .

Orkut was started as a content sharing/ URL or book mark forwarding site now it is being used as ..god knows what ..but its addictive

Flickr is for shutterbugs

My space is predominantly used for discovering music or new bands

Ryze is for exploring new business opportunity

And so on

Don’t go by websites claim about what it can do for you. Look at the flow before you jump in the conversation . and think do you really want to be a part of this ? is it what you are looking for ?
Trying to find a date at Linked in or trying to find a serious professional at Orkut is the biggest idiosyncrasy you can do . I know because I had tried to do both .

#2 Don’t Fall for Temptation:

This is more true for professional sites like Linked in and Ryze . You should not accept everyone’s invitation to connect. I have 80+ direct contacts in my linked in network I know only 60% of them. Rest 40 % are those guys whose invitation I accepted out of courtesy. Initially I used to find it very hard to refuse but now I know I need to maintain a sanity of my network so it’s good to refuse
Don’t worry you will eventually find a network which will work for you. Power of network is not in number of nodes but in connection between the nodes. As a matter of fact we only need six nodes to reach any one in world.

#3 Remember after a while It should be platform independent

Sometime back I Meet a girl at Flickr . She was lovely and everything I could have asked for in a girl (don’t worry.. I have found at least 100 such girls). I admired her photographs she admired mine and we were happy. Life was beautiful. Than one day I sent her a casual email about “ howz life? “Crap. That was the first time we talked anything outside of Photography. Guess what?? She never replied.

So what is the moral of the story ?

There is no substitute of one to one conversation .If you want to nurture a meaningful association through all these sites make it a point to connect via email ,phone ,coffee when you happen to visit there city or birthday . site specific communication are not a yardstick to measure reliability of your network . like every other good thing in life it require nurturing and you can’t out source it to orkut.

#4 Bonus :

I can safely say that much of the folks in this networking mad rush are looking for a DATE . my two cents advice for them . Chat Room, IM, IRC, ICQ are far more effective in this. Stuck to them and please clear the stage for some serious business

Incase you are a entrepreneur planning to launch a dating site . My friend Rajiv has some excellent Ideas/ Advice for you. Read it here

This is my idea of a effective use of these sites .I would love to know how you make it work for you .

Wishing you a great weekend.

P.S . Image Courtesy Masahiko

Green Ocean ,Blue Ocean ,Astronomer & Astrounaut

This saturday i attended a event organized by Tie-BoA . Agenda of this event was to announce a collaboration /Alliance bitween Tie and Band Of Angeles as an initiatvie to nurture a Silicon Valley like Eco System in india.

I am writng this post to highlight one aspect of any such event which i have seen in all of the gathering sometime under the surface sometiem openly .

Its the Silo or Communication gap bitween Investor and Enterprenuer .

Be it VC or Angel , Institutional or Individual there is always a conflict of interest bitween both of the parties . As a matter of fact this phenomena is not confined to this country . Even in developed economies tales of VC-enterprenuer conflict is commonplace.

This used to baffel me when i started attending such gathering around a year back . by every logic i can think of , VC and Enteprenuer should work togther and it should be a win-win deal . but after one year and 10-12 such gathering i can safely say that this is hardly the case .

what is suppose to be a "Meeting Of Minds " often Turns in to a "Clash of Heads" :) why ?

As an aspiring enterprenuer i have a significant interest in exploring answer to this Question.So that when i approach potential investor in my venture i can avoid all that .

Before i start let me tell you a very interesting but true story to set the context

After three moths of talks and many presntations when it was time to decide . A leading Ex-i banker Turned VC said to a budding indian enterpreneur "u seems to have a good idea and i don't really doubt your credentials , team is ok . but your IDEA can be easily copied by big guys ".

He answered "yes sir! it s very likely that they can . but unlikely that they will" .

VC said "what stops them to enter in your space. ?"

He said "Well only thing which stops me is lack of money to hire programmers and run my operation but big guys don't have that constraint so i guess nothing will prevent them if they want to ,but they will not ."

but VC was ex I Banker and Ex MBA with the habbit of throwing TLA (Three letter Accronym ie ROI,NAV,TVC,TQM,EBIDTA etc ) in every sentence and enterprenuer was a street smart guy who despise all the "Theory " about business.

so VC said " what i am worried about is how you will create a Blue Ocean ? "

By this time enterprenuer was totaly frustraed and decided that he will not work with this guy even if he give me a million $ . so he said in a mocking tone

" i will take a "Green Ocean " of Money from you and Turn it into Blue Ocean of Commpetieve Advantage and thus we will have an ROI which will show dissporoptinate value creation .We will disrupt the existing eco system of our Industry and we will alter the risk reward equilibrium for ever . [LONG PAUSE]

Sir I don't want to work with you now so I am telling you the truth , I don't want your GYAN . you can't run a kirana shop with all your TLAs. Truth is, idiot like me come to you for your money Because thats what you are good for.

don't trust me ?? ask your wife why she married you . "


Needless to say he didn't get the funding :) .


I don't think that the gentelman's response was justified by any yardstick .NO MATTER WHAT THE PROVOCATION WAS . But still i choose this example because i wanted to highlight the deep rooted despise an Enterprenuer have toward all this management lingo. if there is a story which show it in true color this is the one . The silo we are talking about is very very big .

Green Ocean :

Marriage is the only war where you sleep with the
enemy.                                     

- Gary Busey

I think this Gary fellow never raised money from a VC

-annonymus enterprenuer

About a year back, i attended a talk by legnedary VC Jhon Doerr of KPCB. He said that in every booming market where there is a possibility of making quick money ,there are two type of people . Mercenary and Missionary .

Mercenary wants to create quick wealth and Missionary wants to create a great product /company. Mercenary is driven by greed & Missionary is driven by sense of achivement . and trouble is that Often It is not easy to differentiate bitween the two .

In the context of our story the mercenary is the one who is only interested in "Green Ocean" of money .
I have seen some enterprenuer who are so much obssesed with funding that for them success of venture equate to securing funding only. On the other hand we have heard that in some of the greatest success stories of our times Promoter end up having only a minority shares at time of exit .

Collective equity founders of yahoo or Excite or even SGI were less than 25% at the time of IPO/acquisiton . sadly in india we don't even have these numbers available with us . i really don't know what to dedeuce from this observation . i am in a fix .

In the light of these fact when VC and Enterprenuer approach each other they always seems to believe that the guy on the other side of the table is interested in "Green Ocean" only. This leads to a feeling of mutual distrust. I seriously believe that its a job of enterprenuer to take initiatvie to comfort the VC and Clear the mist .

Blue Ocean :

"Big companies are good at extracting the value from existing products, but bad at creating new ones. Why? To start with, most big companies have some kind of turf to protect, and this tends to warp their development decisions.

For example, Web-based applications are hot now, but within Microsoft there must be a lot of ambivalence about them,because the very idea of Web-based software threatens the desktop. So any Web-based application that Microsoft ends up with, will probably, like Hotmail, be something developed outside the company."
Paul Graham

BLUE OCEAN .This is the latest buzz word in venture circle :) . Very often investors ask this Question .

What stops Yahoo or Microsoft or Google or IBM (Darn !!!) from entering in your line of business ?

and the only correct answer i can think of is Nothing .

Nothing can stops Microsoft from opening a Hamburger joint in Subway and compete with Macdoanld . but the Question is will they do it ?

May be ,May be not ? Will they be doing it before a small nimble footed startup ? certainly not .

It takes a month to put a server in server farm at Redmond ,so much for flexibilty and agile business.

Funny thing is investor talk of having Blue Ocean of Competetive advantage . in my view unless you are in to very very hard core technology ,startup can have only one advantage .
Advantage of size and low cost operation.(not sure if its a "Blue Ocean" or not ) startups are basically experiment . and experiement can go wrong .

Yahoo should defintley come in my line of business .that is the last think we should worrry about . i will be a fool if they don't .

Million dollar Q is if they came ..will they Buy me or Copy me or Buy my competietor ? well i think this depend on three factor

1) When they discover me ? Pre Launch or Post Launch

2) How good a job i have done ? (userbase ,scalability,Brand etc)

3) Do i have the right connections to close the deal ?

I think if VC really wants a "Blue Ocean" they should create one by Taking care of #1 & #3 so that enterprenuer can focus on #2 . That is the only "Blue Ocean" a startup can afford . :)

So i strongly believe that the concern about "Blue Ocean" and fear of being copied by Big guys are baseless. isn't that the opportunity for which all of us are here ? isn't it the fun ? :)


Astrounaut & Astronomer :

What is the diffrence bitween an Astromomer and Astronaut ?

Astronomer study the space from a distance , chart a path for ship , do the calculations, warn about any possible metroide which may hit and then clears the way for astrounaut . Once in outer space astraunaut is on his own . He steer the ship on his own judgement with ocaasional input from ground station .sometime all the collective wisdom of astronomers won't help him and he will have to act on his gut instinct if he wantto come back safely .

Yet every kid want to be a astronaut and hardly any one know about astronomer till he start preparing for his voyage .

launching a venture is like a space voyage where VC is like astronomer ( because of his experience) and enterprenuer is astronaut . This is the best analogy i can come up with to expalin my understnading of an ideal relation ship bitween VC & Enterprenuer . Both are equally important for a succesfull space voyage .

There should be an exchange of ideas and clarity of communication bitween them . Tendency to one up each other won't help any of them .

I admit enterprenuer enjoy moe lime light but if you remove the exception of Microsoft i am yet to see a success story where VC was not significantly involed in shaping the destiny of venture (and his own by side effect:) )

This is my Two cents on this issue , i would like to have your feedback on this .Please help me to get it right :)

P.S .I know it is a very long post so if you are still reading . Thanks for your patience .I hope it was worth your time :)

Musing at 1 :44 AM with Coke & Smoke

Its 1:44 AM IST and I just came back after my fifth Cigarette tonight . with 6 Cigarette left in the pack .It is very much likely that i will have few more in next few hours . Rather, I am damn sure that none of the remaining Tobacco sticks will see the light of the day.And I will have to buy a new pack when the tea shop opens in wee hours of morning .

Thankfully I have got two Coke bottles in refrigerator and the glass i use is very small and i am lazy enough not to go to refrigerator frequently for a refill. So i guess my coke will survive . Great !!! I have one less thing to worry about .

The Truth is that i know deep within that all this Smoke & Coke is not going to help in easing out the tension and restlessness . It will take its own course and die its own death . Strangely, sometimes I feel that I can be a good test case for Psychologist ,for I am an enthusiastic , positive thinking + energetic Guy only when i run out of all other options .

I fight when i have my back against the wall . I look up when i fall flat on my back. I fight back when i have nothing to loose or when i have lost everything . I win (at least till now ) when Wining and loosing has lost all worldly meaning to me and turn in to a battle inside . Sadly or happily, i never felt too Light/Enlightened on the biggest accomplishments in my life. what i feel is a strange sort of smouldering, something akin to feeling that its not the victory which you want to achive. What i want to win over is that urge ,which makes that victory important . I want to win over that external dependency to win every time to reassure myself or others when i know that deep down nobody gives a damn .

Before you become choked with sympathy and begin to think of me as a pshyco, badly in need of counselling . let me tell you that i am a perfectly healthy and normal guy . in fact ppl around me find me funny too . Some of them come to me for guidance in the hour of great emotional distress & financial difficulty .But in both of the cases they never care to pay back :).

One of my female colleague used to call me Budhha (The Prophet) and my brother call me Buddha :) .But i am still not able to figure out why i am like that . Tonight i am trying to make yet another attempt to figure that out .


Solitude and Solitaire :

“The love of heaven makes one heavenly.” -- William Shakespeare


"We all Die . The Goal isn't to Live forever ,The Goal is to create something that will "-Anonymous

I seriously feel that creating something World Class require us to alienate from the world . Entrepreneurs are ambitious by the rule, and aspiring entrepreneur are more so .They are somewhat more insecure and confused than the guy who has taken the plunge . but an entrepreneur's objective is different from a regular "Ambition".They don't conform to the stereo-type . they are not in to RAT race where Ambition is pretty antagonistic. Ambition is the drive to assert self-legitimized superiority over one's peers.

Who's raising their hand the highest in third grade? Who's going to have the best wardrobe in middle school? Who's the first to get laid ? Get into IIT ? Get the highest paying job?

They don't identify with their peers and This brings a loneliness . I am sometimes annoyed and upset by this solitude . Tonight seems to be one such night .

Solitaire is a Precious & Lovely Diamond but it is always the only one in necklace . This is it's boon, this is it's curse .


Victory and Reward :

"Business is like pinball. The reward for doing it well is the opportunity to do it again." : -Anonymous(often Attributed to Bill G)

Entrepreneurs have potential to achieve great victories and to suffer serious defeats. They take great risks but are able to gain tremendous rewards. Most people choose the middle route for their whole lives: working for someone else and gaining "security" with a regular paycheck, benefits, etc. They often know neither great victory nor bitter defeat. I have not yet ventured out as an entrepreneur. I need to learn some more and start out small in God's timing. But I hope that someday I will join the ranks of these "producers who strike out on their own, who know high highs and low lows, great devotions, and who overextend themselves for worthwhile causes." my true motive is to fulfill the calling that God has placed on my life. How will I specifically do this through having my own business? i know i will never know until i go out and give it a shot .

The journey is the reward .

I am still very confused . this uncertainty is something i hate . will this one last fight of having my venture up and running and Profitable free me from this urge of having to take the next battle . will this achievement give a final reassurance . I won't know till i explore .

Once again i am flat on my back and i have my back against wall .It's time to fight again . one more time . hopefully this will give me something permanent . Amen!

Photo Courtesy Mr. Ankur Sardana (Found it at his Flickr Stream , Haven't taken his permission yet to publish it here) .Find more of his flickr Pics . here

This guy gets undressed in 7 seconds

check tjhis out its funny and amzingly swift

Mobile Monday Comes To Delhi

After a long wait since BarCamp . Delhi is going to have its next geek carnival soon.This time its Mobile Monday .

Mobile Monday is a monthly gathering of mobile enthusiasts from every section of mobile Eco system like Telco,Content aggregate ,VAS Provider,Application developer etc.We have started the Delhi chapter of Mobile Monday and On Aug 05 2006 we are having our first meeting . Everyone who is interested in Mobile Technologies can participate in it . We encourage you to be a part of this Event and share your thoughts with fellow mobile geeks .

Details of Event is given Below

Mobile Monday Delhi : "Mobile 2.0: Future Trends and Technology"


When?

05 August 2006 ( Mark your calender ,it's on weekend)

Where?

Adobe Systems India Private Limited
Adobe Towers
I-1A, City Centre, Sector : 25A
Noida - 201301
Tel # 91-120-2444711

Want to participate ?? Register yourself at our wiki !!
http://momodelhi.pbwiki.com

To keep you updated on latest developments Pre and Post event Please join our mailing list .

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/momodelhi/


Don't miss it !! Its going to be a day of Great fun and learning . looking forward to see you guys there .

High & Low in the Same day : That's Life

Last week was very- very hectic for me . We are planing to launch the version one of our product at my day job . i am very eager to blog about it but i am bound to wait till we officially go live with our product . Trust me ...its a great Product . Experience of being involved in launch of version 1.0 of any product is very rare and i feel myself lucky to see it firsthand . A lot of Excitement ,Chaos ,enthusiasm ,fire fighting ,late night ,stress ,humour and hard work . i am literally living "The Soul Of New Machine" these days .

But amid all these excitement and adrenaline i came to know about a sad news . My friend and a budding Entrepreneur Rajan & his partner Rajat has decide to dissolve their venture Advetta Because of reasons like lack of funding and proper mentoring available in India .
I meet Rajat at BarCamp Bangalore and was frequent to his blog . they were working on a mobile visual search idea .

Every budding and inspiring Entrepreneur lives under the shadow of this fear .As an aspiring entrepreneur this news was shocking for me . they were smart guys with good credentials .This event enforced my believe that VC funding is more or less a random draw and you can't predict the fool proof Approach for it .

i had a word with Rajan in afternoon . Against my hope he was very cheerful and still excited . perhaps that's the spirit of Enterprise . you can be down but not out .

Good luck to you guy s . may force be with you for your future endeavours . i feel sorry for the way things turned out but at the same time you must have learned a lot and this knowledge will make a lot of difference in long time . Remember "You can't Connect the Dots looking Froward "

Reading this news helped me to put the situation in perspective . We are lucky to have funding and a highly skilled team of People here who have many years of product development exp behind them . i will try to learn more and more from there experience now onward . this may be the best training i can get . i feel lucky to have them here as mentor . This swing between two opposite extreme was a strange experience . but i will remember it for a long time to come .


Needs to Get Back to work now ..Product launch is in pipeline . watch this space for update .

Have a Great weekend !!!

Naukri IPO

After months of speculation and waiting Naukri.com finally and officially announced that it its going public . it has submited its IPO filing with sebi . you can read it here .

Althoug timing is a little odd but still this is really an exciting news for Internet Business in India . Sanjeev has proved that Internet business can make money and to be profitable you don’t really need to have an worldwide audience to serve . you can do it by serving the need to domestic customers also .

i had the opportunity to meet Hitesh and Sanjeev Twice . if anyone deserve this honour than it is this team. i can foresee a Mad rush to invest in all the dot com .can we say that dot com boom 2 has finally started in India . i think now VCs will start looking at companies beyond Travel portals

Critical Q is what will they do with all the money they are raising ? there are two option which easily comes to mind 1) they will start expanding their operations overseas but honestly this doesn’t require a lot of cash they can easily leverage their “Word Of mouth ” Credentials . second is to diversify in other vertical . with jeevansaathi.com & 99acres.com in their stable this seems to be a logical step. I personally feel that 99acres is a good place to focus . in my last assignment at WebPlains (a great company BTW ) i have worked as a salesman in Staffing /recruitment domain . i have seen the clout of Naukri firsthand ( w.r.t to bixee and green hire episode ) .

and with whatever little exposure i have to real estate market i can safely say that stage is all set for infoedge to capture this market . with Naukri going public i think 99acres can get all the attention it deserve and Team infoedge should stop treating it as a step child .coming months will be interesting to watch the action .

Pirates of Silicon Valley-Microsoft steals from Apple

I am a YouTube fan . in the wake of recent turn of event at Microsoft (M$) BillG's announcement to step down and everything else i started sniffing youtube for some videos related to Bill Gates,Microsoft ,Steve Jobs ,Apple . intially i was doing it just for amusement but then i discovered some really serious stuff here .
This one shown here is a clip from a movie based on the story of BillG and Steve Jobs titeled
"Pirates Of Silicon Valley "
its cool , do watch it .

Prashant

News :: July 2008 & Bill will be Out of Gate

So the word is officially out ..Bill Gates ..The Richest man in world and Founder of Microsoft has finally decide to step down from Day to day responsibilities of Microsoft's operations in July 2008 .HE will be assuming more of an Advisory role in the company . he will still be the chairman of the company and its single largest individual share holder . He plan to devote more time to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Charity work .

This news caught me with surprise i am still in a state of shock .Can People like Bill Gates ever retire is it possible for them ?? I still believe its not . he is a great Business Leader and Visionary and of course in few quarter he is practical also . He may lack Steve Jobs Charisma ,he may not be in news like Jack Welch or Soros for his passionate believe in anything and propaganda around his believe and he may not be able to communicate like Paul Graham but he is in my view the brightest master of strategy world has ever seen in recent history .

Will Microsoft become a lesser company without BillG ? will it make things easier for Google ? Is it just a Smoke and Mirror Tactics to withdraw attention away and saving the company from too much of public scrutiny ?? will BillG's Ghost haunt Redmond ? is the days of Desktop computing over ? are we finally entering in to always on ,always on demand , web ( 2.0) based world .

I don't know . I don't think anybody know for sure . i am sure of two things

#1) It will not change a thing for Google . for a company of the size of google & Microsoft you (Usually ) don't need a competitor to Kill yourself . your weight and foolishness is enough to do a good job of it .

#2)Biggest beneficiary of this move will be MS it self as a lot of hidden talent in MS top brass will come out from the shadow of banyan tree (Read BillG) and will get there share of lime light . it will give a tough competition to any suspecting rival.

#3) Desktop computing will remain a dominant paradigm of personal Computing for a long time to come .

#4) Bill Gates will remain the richest Man for a long time to come .

I am still pondering over the long term implication of this news . will post a full fledged analysis sometime over the weekend. however Joel Spoksky has given an excellent write up on his first meeting with Bill G when he was working with Microsoft . its worth reading. Find it here .

floofy cloud or Aline in Sky

floofy cloud
Originally uploaded by Anosmia.

I am a member of a group on Flickr Called " Window Seat Please" . To day i came across this mystical picture on the board . somebody clicked a cloud from his window seat and some oneelse saw a ghost in that cloud .
can you find out the Ghost or Alien here??

Folck :A New Web Browser

Few days back guys at Folck released a public beta of their much awaited Browser . It was an exciting news for me for two reasons.  One i happen to meet with Chris at barcamp Bangalore and attended his presentation on Micro formats . it was awesome . he  was till very recent past  associated with this project . Now he is a freelancer doing consulting work .

secondly this project was making a very different  and somewhat dramatic bet on the future of browsing as we know it . Since the inception of browsing technology ( Mosaic  Onward ) the approach to developing a browser is pretty much standard . browser was more of a gateway. it was done in a more and more generalised fashion . there was no optimization for any application specific or domain specific usage pattern . there was support for ActiveX,XML,Frames but they were not aimed at any particular user base . that means there was no application level optimization there was no specific browser for E-Commerce or for Usenet or blogs or for video . there was a business sense in doing that .of course if you optimize your browser for one user group you run the risk of alienating with the rest of Internet users . since no single user base was big enough to make this kind of effort commercially viable so it was in  the best interest of developer to make it as Horizontal as possible .

folck is the first browser with this application layer optimization . they have positioned themselves as a browser for web 2.0 crowd who are neck deep in to  social networking and tagging and other such stuff . their tag line says "Browser for You and Your Friends". with its feature for Blogging, Feed reader and photo sharing it surely have some appeal to this user base .  i am hooked on it right now and plan to do so in future but i really wonder how long i can keep up with the inconvenience of using multiple browsers . Maintaining  History , Book Marks ,feeds,passwords  at two places is too much of work .


its really an interesting experiment . do we really need a separate browser for every kind of browsing we do ? can we all the features of folck be pushed in to FireFox by some extension or some plug gin . is it just an heck an experiment or this is a start of a new trend .
well time ahead will be the judge of it . but right now i am captivated by the sleek interface and new features of folck . Kudos to the team .
good luck ...may the force be with you .

Problems with Mobile web

My affair with mobile web application domain is around 7 year old now. I was a little late adopter of a fixed line telephone as our village was not having a phone line. when I get in to college I fell in love with wireless networking .when I was asked to deliver seminar as part of my course curriculum I choose to give a presentation on “WAP: A Tool To Unwire Internet “ . Since that day I am constantly monitoring this domain from the view point of a amused observer, tech enthusiast, user and since last six month or so as an aspiring entrepreneur willing to get a slice of some action and make a small fortune in process.

Jokes apart I honestly believe that Mobile Web domain is the next hot thing in Hi Tech . Forthcoming years will see a hell lot of action in this space. Specially for a country like India where cost of access device (Read PC) is still a bit too high for most of the people . Mobile phone offer a very affordable alternate for internet access.

But something is missing. Even though we have all the tools and conditions to create a mobile web ecosystem. Still we haven’t got the critical mass .this industry has not really reached at a Tipping Point. atleast not yet .

Why?? What is the Problem?

My One Line Answer: “Our Approach to Problem is the Real Problem”

In this post I intend to draft an anatomy of our wrong approach to mobile web application development.

PC Hangover

“ What would you call a device that has a screen, a keyboard, storage for personal information such as contacts, email, documents, the ability to play audio and video files, some games, a spreadsheet program, and a communications capability?
Sound like a personal computer? How about "mobile phone" ? “

Philip Greenspun In "Mobile Phone As Home Computer"

“Think about it... someday there'll be some newbie. He'll register a domain, throw up a bunch of mobile web pages and then someone will hit the site from their PC and get an error... "Oops! I totally forgot about the PC!"
Will it happen? Hmmm. Probably not, right, since that newbie will probably be making the web pages from his or her computer, so they'll obviously try the site from their PC. Mobile Web Pages will be the norm when you can create a complete mobile website from your phone without help from a computer. It's like the web equivalent of a OS bootstrapping. Until you can do everything from creation to consuming from your mobile, there'll always be a PC in the way, and thus the mindset won't change (at least for me). “

Russell Beattie In Mobile Webpage Thoughts

When we think of computing we think of PC , when we think of internet we think of PC as the default device . All our design heuristic are derived from PC World & developing Apps for mobile is perceived as equivalent to Picking up a desktop application and optimizing it for low screen size, low processing power and less onboard memory . And eureka !!! what you have got is a browsing experience which sucks

Both Mobile and Desktop are tow different devices which are used in different manner, the parameter of user expectation are different. So making a rehash of desktop application and trying to push it down the throat of end user will not help.

People(read :We the Geeks) are trying to use mobile web as a glue to fix when desktop web access is broken because of mobility limitation of desktop. IMHO this is the reason why mobile web has not been able to take a life of its own . App Designers /Architects believe that mobile browsing is a way to patch the connectivity glitch , its not a mainstream internet access medium. In spite of the huge success of DoCoMo’s Mobile Data Application in Japan most of the companies (Telcos, OEM, Content Provider ) don’t look at it as a mainstream access device which is not doing justice to the potential it holds .

My Two Cents Advice: Stop looking at mobile web access as a secondary/Ad hoc browsing solution and start building Apps with mobile paradigm in their DNA. It’s not an exercise in optimization, its something we need to do from the scratch.

Generation Gap

Most of the Decision making guys in Telco & OEM are the in Late Forties and they are totally out of sync with the expectation and realities of Young-Hip-and Upwardly mobile user base of Their product . I talked to a Senior Guy of VAS in Leading Telco and he said “Given the Rock Bottom Call Rates Here in India I think SMS is a sheer waste of Time “

In the same Telco I talked to a Sr. Manager (Marketing) {Ex-HLL } and asked him Where/When do you think your customer is most likely to use your VAS Services like GPRS etc . He was at a loss but then said “at Barista/Coffee Day I guess” . He may have a point but one reason why mobile browsing picked up in Japan (and UK to some extent ) and not in USA is that people commute using Public Transport (London Tube & other Train ,BUS .Tram Etc) in Japan and UK but American prefer to Drive their way to work . Now I think its kind of hard to drive and browse simultaneously. People in Telco seems to be totally clueless about it . A classic case of Marketing Myopia.

Now I know and you know the size of market SMS/Mobile VAS represent .if I am launching an Innovative SMS based service I need to fight this Guy in his Late Forties, based on my experience as a sales man I can safely say that biggest difficulty in concept selling is to convince a guy whose generation haven’t “lived” with the problem which you are solving

(As a matter of fact I can’t convince my DAD that its worthy to spend 500 bucks on a pizza. He just won’t listen to me and dismiss my arguments in amusement. ).

Telco might be very swift in adapting to the technology in Equipment .we skipped one phase of Telecom Equipment evolution and moved straight to High Bandwidth OFC Networks. But our business logic is still (mostly) a rehash of AT&T syndrome and we all know that at one point of time AT&T had more Lawyers than Engineers.

Some external Events like SMS Response to “Indian Idol” may give a jolt to these folks once in a while and they may realize the size of opportunity but they are totally incapable of doing it in a proactive manner.

My Two cents Advice: Voice is Dead (Remember the Line in a Cell phone Commercial “…..And You Can Also Talk”). Stop Idealizing AT&T and look at NTT DoCoMo and try to do in India what they have done in Japan . That’s where the future is.

Walled Gardens & Traffic Policemen:

“Most big companies have some kind of turf to protect, and this tends to warp their development decisions. For example, Web-based applications are hot now, but within Microsoft there must be a lot of ambivalence about them, because the very idea of Web-based software threatens the desktop. So any Web-based application that Microsoft ends up with, will probably, like Hotmail, be something developed outside the company.”

Paul Graham In Hiring Is Obsolete

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who will guard the guards themselves? )

:Juvenal, Satires, Roman poet & satirist (55 AD - 127 AD)

This in my opinion is the most damaging aspect of mobile web . Because it has got something to do with an external dependency. From Telco’s to OEMs , From Regulatory bodies to VCs everyone is somewhat biased toward the Big Companies and no body actually give a damn to entrepreneurs .

Things are different in Traditional web application space . If you come up with a good application & execute properly than you have a fair chance to be successful. Because nobody can stop your customer to come to you and consume your services. There is very little external dependency, not for the most part.

But here in mobile web where Pipes are monitored and controlled by the Big Brother (READ: TELCO) you are literally at the mercy of the whims of Telco. The moment you are profitable the Telco mafia knock at your doors for extortion. Even Google’s Of World are not immune from this.

Conflict over revenue sharing between Content providers and Distributors (Telcos ) is another area where there is a ugly exploitation is rampant . In Japan most of the time content provider get as high as 80% of the revenue . here in India the providers cut is 30% at the most . Why ??

Telco says that this is because most of the content is not available in India are very much a commodity. Ringtone, Wallpaper, screensaver etc so it makes sense for them to squeeze it because there Rival Telco can easily copy it next time. Point taken .

We the entrepreneurs are to blame for this. There are very few genuinely New Application in this space in India . One of My Friend who commute through DTC had a tough time finding out the availability to Bus on a various routes . She asked me can’t she SMS her location & destination and some application send her the schedule and Bus number of the next DTC bus available. Truth is it can be done .very easily she only need to send her destination as Telco knows her location anyway and DTC Schedule is more or less stable . So why don’t we have a service like that yet??

Because

1) the skeptic Telco guys will say that folks will prefer to ask bystanders than SMS. (Alright ADD Inter-state Traffic and Railway schedule to it).

2) We are busy making ring tone L

Cell Phone OEMs are another “Partner in Crime“here. After more than a decade of cell phone usage there is no standardization in the market .we are not unanimously agreed even to the battery and charger format. Which should be obvious as charger is a non strategic thing .

Point is that Its not that standards are half baked or they are evolving . the reason is that proprietary implementation is a way to hold the customer in a Mousetrap .but on the flip side in the absence of a unified standard developers are always confused about how to develop an application to have maximum foot print.

My Two Cents: I can’t say anything which they don’t know already . They seems to know the PC History and are aware of the benefits of standardization but it seems that they are afraid of end up being IBM.

This is my take on some of the problems which are associated with Mobile web wonderland. I wanted to write about the VC side of story also but refrained from doing so because I will be looking for the funding soon .

As always your comment and feedbacks are welcome and awaited

Larry Page Video

Came Across this Video clip of Larry Page , giving tips to aspiring enterprenuers . it gives a glimpse of how much measurment centric this guy is .Cool .
worthy watch .

click here to see it

Have a Great weekend !!!

Wow !! Flickr Goes Gamma

Holy God !!

Just when i thought Flickr is the perfect photo sharing site on the web they got even better .Now they are more addictive and  deadly . From Beta they have gone Gamma :-)  . In Gamma version of their  service  they have added a lot of new features.Like activity history and connection status  .

Long standing problem of not being able to track who has commented to which photo and who has replied to my comment is solved . 'Flickr is  more useful and intuitive than ever before


Good Job !! I Love Flickr !!

Google Trends : A Glimpse of The "Database Of Intentions"

Sometime back  google launched a new service called Google Trends  .  With this service you can choose any topic or keyword  and google will tell you  how many times and by which geographical area  a search  is being done on it . Now  you can see the graphical distribution of search magnitude over time line .You can also see tabular  representation of search  in terms of geographical  distribution .

its a funny and addictive service  i tried to find out search frequency for Sania Mirza. compared search frequency of Nokia ,Motorola,Sony .

Bill Gates  & Larry Page and a Lot more .Mostly nasty one  . It was very informative . Specially when you look at   the part of the world from which the query is being done ?

Want to know sex is searched more at UAE or USA ? well  go find out find out :-)


Alright it is a cool application . But implication of this service is far reaching than just people like me doing it just for hack & fun  of it . We know that google keep a record of every search being done  through its site . you can track it right up to the IP address from which the search is done .

I n his book "The Search"  ,  John Battelle   (Co Founder of Wired  )" call this Log of search as "Database of Intentions" . Every google user  fear the day when what he search for is known to the world . whether we admit it to our self or not  but we are practically naked in front of Google. With Google Trends this database of intention is open ,Although at a very very coarse granularity level .

You can't  find what your Friends are searching for, But you can find out what an average person in UAE or US Or UK or India  is searching for . This can be  an explosive tool to study whats going inside a society , whats cooking and whats is being bottled up where . With this  raw , unedited and first hand info about citizen's  preference in a given geography  our precept ion of a country and their culture may change drastically . for the first time  Its not a Ministry  of tourism or Foreign affairs telling us about the country . Its the summation of action and intentions of their citizen . isn't that a real disruptive piece of info .

Kudos to Google Team for this breakthrough  . Their  mission was to organize worlds information . with Google Trends they are one step closer to providing  Actual  information to world . Still there are something which is scary , can this be treated as a factual data for forming opinion about a country (Eventually it will , some folks are quoting it already) .

Coming months will be interesting in this respect . I am keeping my fingers crossed