Anshul Samar : 13 Year OLD CEO of Elemento

Venturebeat has a post about Anshul Samar ,13 year old CEO of Elemento . a silicon valley startup in educational games . this young prodigy was at TieCon to raise fund for his venture . he has developed a card game to teach chemistry . look at this video and notice his confidence when he says “We inject fun into education,”. i feel good to see him . i am sure you will too.

Good Luck Anshul ,

Ek Chidiya Anek Chidiya

I want to show you this animation clip .My Friend Lomash K . showed it to me today . It was a bit nostalgic experience for me as I used to enjoy this clip a lot when i used to be aired on Door darshan . I am sure you must have seen it . Here is a chance to enjoy it again

cheers

My Journey Through QLC @ Crescendo

When I posted here last time it was Feb 15th 2007. It’s been more than 60 days since then & I haven't updated my blog. I got a lot of emails from a lot of folks. Some known and some unknown, asking if I was well and why I was not posting frequently? I was touched by the fact that there are people out there whom I never met and who care about me. I gave a lame excuse of being busy but you guys deserve to know the truth. My sincere apologies for what I told you.

So why was I absent? What was keeping me busy? As I admitted above, my work load was not the real reason. Actually, I was upset, I was frustrated, I was cribbing, I was angry with the whole world, I was not able to focus on anything, I fought with my girlfriend a lot without much fault of hers [I am sorry, Sweetheart ].

You must be wondering why?? I was not happy with the pace at which things were moving. Life was getting lethargic, routine and I am getting old. Regular readers of my blog may know about this as I have talked about it here and Here. This time, this feeling was a bit more intense and long lasting.

I turned 29 this march i didn't celebrated my Birthday . Only six people wished me on B'day and three of them were too busy to attend the party. Eventually i had to cancel the celebration . Me and my room mate Jitu went to a restaurant in neighborhood and had some Thai food .

We were planning to launch our website [my dream project] and for a while. We worked hard for it but things came to a standstill as we are still struggling with some design level issues.


Every time I talk to my parents they make it a point to tell me that I am getting older and it would be hard for me to find a girl and get married in next 1-2 years. [Darn!! As if it was easy to find a girl in last 28 years].


What is it that is happening to me?? I think I am suffering from Quarter Life Crisis and now it has reached its peak. That’s why I call this post QLC @ Crescendo.

What Is QLC ???

QLC is a very keenly studied and deeply researched topic in Psychology. You can read a detailed article on Wikipedia here . In layman's language you can define QLC as

" It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now."

I am feeling exactly like this these days . i want to do a lot of things but sometime i Question myself "is that what i want to do Actually ??, is there any point In long term ? " .

My friend and roommate who was suffering form the same feeling reached the limit of his patience and resigned from his job at world's number one software company. He is study Cinematography now . sometime he is scared , sometime he is thrilled some time he is in deep thoughts but he is alert and not passive . At least life is not passing by for him . He is living it .

But Why I am like that ? or Why i become like that ? i know one thing for sure "I am not the only one . i may be the only one who is outspoken but i am not the only one . "

My Tryst with QLC [story so far..... ]

Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.
- Lou Holtz

I tried very hard to fight this. I tried every trick I knew or could think of. I tried many things to get a kick. I am writing some of them here.

• I called my friends and asked them to have dinner/lunch with me. I think I was sort of looking for solace in crowds .Few guys did come but it was a temporary solution.

• I went for a trekking and rafting holiday at Rishikesh. I was under the impression that all the adrenaline from rafting will break the inertia. It worked for a day or two but a few days down the line it was same old story again.

• I went to "The Big Chill" an exotic restaurant at Khan Market, Delhi. A friend had told me that food there is great. I thought of "Food Therapy" and ate few good dishes [like Smoked Chicken Caesar salad with Tuna dressing, Chicken in Red Wine and Rice and Grilled Chicken Breast smeared with Exotic Oriental Gravy]. The food was out of this world but not of any therapeutic value.

• On the recommendation of a friend I tried acupuncture to invoke the source of hidden energy inside me by pinching my self with a pin at three points. It was of no help. Either I didn't pinch hard enough or there was no hidden energy to begin with. But most probably my friend was a lunatic.

• I posted thrice on www.tired.com just so that some holy soul can answer but no response yet.

• I went out and met a few of the so called established, successful and enlightened people in and around Delhi. Hoping that this will give me some perspective on success. i met a leading investment banker from Goldman, an Ex-Mckinsey, a one-time entrepreneur turned VC and all three of them seemed phony to me. They were not inspiring. Of course, they were confident, intelligent and successful but I saw a vacuum.

Some other suggestion which i got from my Well wishers and i [thankfully] never tried

• Try horse riding. It will give you a sense of controlling a living thing. You will feel good and powerful. [ Thank God, they didn't suggest bull fight.]
• Go for a walk in the Himalayas….alone.
• Watch Kill Bill Part 1 & 2 in the same day.
• Become a Buddhist monk.
• Format your hard disk without taking backup. So that you will learn that you can stay alive without anything. Nothing is indispensable. :{E
• Get a tattoo on my arm saying "This too Shall Pass".
• Consult a Vaastu pundit for purifying my room and wear some Astro Stone.
• Spend some time with school going children answering their questions.
• Nurture a plant and talk to it as it grows.

[You see, the world is full of self-confessed psycho-analysts and I am blessed with the company of some of the selected specimen among them.]

A Movie , A Bridge , A White Board and A Fresh Start .

Living here day by day, you think it's the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything changed. The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time... many years... before you can come back and find your people. The land where you were born. But now, no. It's not possible. Right now you're blinder than I am.

Do as the solider did Totto.....Run away

Alfredo In Cinema Paradiso

Thou shall Follow Me , Let the dead, bury the dead
:~ Jesus Christ

As I was going through all this, Mother Nature was taking its own course and it was dropping a hint, ever so subtly. Trust me, when you want something badly the solution is just around the corner. You just need to want it badly enough. So, one day my roommate, a movie buff, downloaded an Italian movie from Bit Torrent. Its called Cinema Paradiso. This movie was exactly what we needed to see all this time.

Essentially, the message of this movie was that if you want to stand out from your surroundings you need to step out of it first. You can't keep proving yourself by "their" standards and benchmarks and then expect to end up being different from them.

Don't cling to mediocrity. Take risks. Challenge yourself. And most importantly- burn the bridge so there is no way you can go back. When there is no way to go back only then you will fight with your 100%.

So I decided to burn some bridges which were holding me to mediocrity & cemented those bridges which inspire me to move ahead and move up.

I didn't answer phone calls from some of my "friends" who were more of a social liability. I was being used by them time and again but somehow I was not able to prove it. This time I didn't care a damn to prove anything to him. I just decide that I had had enough of him in the name of decency.

I was building some bridge to future. I decide to work hard on our start-up idea. We [me and Jitu ] bought a white board so that we can discuss and brainstorm our start up plans in more details. This white board has in fact become a harbinger of a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm for both of us. We decided to fix some hours for brainstorming daily.

I decided to talk more to my GF and be more caring :) . Apart from my family and a few very close friends, she is the only one from my past I am carrying forward to the future.
There are a few more resolutions like regularity with exercises, regularity in calling mom and a few more.

I realized that I have waited enough for life to start. I will NOW do what I always wanted to do. And friends, I have been into it for a week and the experience so far is very good. I was feeling especially good today. So I decided to share this with you guys.

It's a fresh start. I think it will be a good journey. I will keep you guys posted.

Welcome to the Joyride !!!
:)

Side Effects of Simplifications

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler."

Albert Einstein

Some Snippets from events happening around me these days

• A newly wed guy thinks that his wife is having a cool life with no worries . cook,clean,eat,wait & watch TV .

• A Developer Thinks that his Manager is a real parasite who is adding no value to end result

• A Teenager actually believes that his parents just don't want to see his point view on anything Pizza ,Party or his GF.


• A Schoolgirl i know , cries when she didn't get admission in a school of Architect . She thinks she loves designing buildings. why ? Because she still play with Lego Block and showed me some snaps of her creations . [they were impressive ]


• In my previous assignment when i asked my tech Manager and CEO to explain the reason for one of his decision. he said "I don't want to explain my each and every action to you . i can't Run the company in exception handling mode . you need to follow the guide line from management .its as simple as that " need less to say i didn't believe him and thought he is taking an easy way out by borrowing strength from his position .

• My Landlord thinks that people from bihar are not trust worthy.

What's common in scenarios described above ??

You may disagree with me but i seriously believe that subjects in all these scenarios are having a wrong assumption about the way thing s work . I believe that this is because of the fact that they are suffering from side effect of Simplification.All of them lives in a world and deal with the people and things around them but for the most part its not a direct experience .its not first hand . their interface with the surrounding has been a bit too structured and simplified . He don't really understand all the complexity which goes in to the transaction . and its Human nature that when you don't Understand the complexity You can't appreciate the effort , you only care about the end result . Its Fine with Machine,Software ,Gadgets but Its not a Good paradigm while dealing with human being .

• Don't you think that it would be great if ..............

• If wife can tell her husband what it takes to do thankless household chores and do it every day for the rest of your life [Ans: Boredom,Dedication,Monotonicity,Faith]. I think He will be respecting her more if she do that . because 90% of Guys will not opt for a job like this . but still females shield the complexity by greeting him with a 1000 Volt smile when he get back home in the evening and He thinks she was like that whole day . [ Copy to all the "Moms of world:" you spoil us before SHE does . but thanks for raising the Bar ]

• If Manager can tell his team what it takes to sell a project with 100 known bugs to customer and still get the money and Next order for maintenance release with same billing rate probably 80% of Developers will be on their knees with reverence .

• Like Bill Gates If Parents can tell their kids "Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room." you know it will be a good lesson for kids.but parents hide every details from Kids[specially in India ] and kids hate them [innocently ]

• Someone Please tell that school Girl that Architecture is not about Lego Block and Sketches . Its about standing on Highway in Direct sunlight with Daily labourer and managing a Big Fat Contractor . not a setting for Her highly creative mind . But we don't [Never] give our kids a glimpse of life in their chosen line . Is it that tough ? does her Father don't know a single Architect ? isn't there a slight possibility that she is confusing Interior Decoration with Architecture ?

• if my manager could have walk me through the reason and his thought process i would have been continuing in that job [ BTW i am glad that he opted otherwise :) ]

• I don't want to think about my landlord except when i have to go see him for rent .

Each of the example proves that there should be some healthy level of awareness about complexity in life . specially when it comes t o human relationship . Still world is racing toward simplification Why ?

Scalability ,Racism & Simplification

I always find it amusing how eager We are to generalize the things . We simply don't want to deal with events and people on case to case basis .We don't have the energy and intent to experience any thing different . we want routine, we want process, we want scalability. we just don't want to think. Not every time .

HR say that We only hire IITians [but admit that Talent do exist out side of IIT also] ,

Accounts Deppt. says our Travel expense limit is up to 50$ /Day only [but admit its hard to sustain in US when a water bottle cost 3 $ ] .

An IT Project Consulting Firm claim that a good software Testing Guy who is being billed at $35 /Hr by Infy should be fixing 10 -15 Bugs a day [No consideration for Nature of Project ,No constraint on hours spent in meeting per day , whether fixing a bug may introduce new one ,Even no attention to the fact that whether there is 10-15 bugs to start with in the first place or not just a number 10-15 bugs Per day . Go Figure :).]

These are case of people trying to deal with information overload by making very very wide ramifications. Most of the times we don't make informed opinion . what we have is a rule of thumb , a heuristic,a bias, a prejudice . i don't see a prejudice driven decision making process as a sign of good mental health . But as a human being we all are more or less prone to it .Once Bitten Twice Shy

We have few bad experience with members of a particular community and we become averse of dealing with them . it may sound like an extreme extrapolation but i would like to go ahead and say that "Racism is result of our societies tendency of over simplification."

if you think that you love simplification and you make assumption based on your [limited ] experience , but that doesn't makes you a racist . I am sorry to say but You are probably wrong . what ? you don't believe me ? May be you would love to have a look at Project Implicit and give their online Test for judging your Racial orientation . You will be shocked to see your performance and i am sure you will agree with me after that .

Exception & Mediocrity

I always believe that when we are seeking scalability we opt for Mediocrity as a byproduct. Go see the efficiency level of big process driven IT Firm you will discover that its not even 40%. Most of the start up are chaotic because only in a setting like that you can create exception . I work in a startup as program manager Essentially my job is to co ordiante with Tech team and customers but i also help HR in sniffing Good candidate , i help some project manager in organizing their Beta program , I take some sales enquiries too . and i am not the only one in my company who do this . everyone in my team do that according to their strength, interest & schedule .Having a little interest in everybody business give us the understanding of the hardship they go through so we respect each other more . this work as a glue to hold our team together . our attrition rate is lowest . we only lost three people since being incorporated in india . two for personal reasons and one for higher studies . And the result ? we have a world class product , we are awarded Most innovative company in India by Nasscom and our President received this prize from PM of India .

I some time wonder if this can be done in a start up why can't we do it in our family , neighbourhood and society ? what is stopping us from understanding and appreciating our peers in different spheres of life ? why is world on a simplification overdrive ? why the conventional wisdom doesn't looks like wisdom to me ? I try to understand but can't conclude ? Do you have any idea ?

Let's embrace a little bit of complexity .Its Good for all of us :)

Dr. Kumar Vishvas and His Poetry

Readers of My Blog,

Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year .
In My First post of 2007 I want you to meet someone .His name is Dr. Kumar Vishvas . A young Poet from India . I meet this Energetic , romantic and exceptionally talented poet two year back at a "Kavvi Samealan" [ Yes i attend that too, some time :) ]

That day we had dinner together and he promised me to come to my wedding and recite a poem specially written for the occasion . ( I Hope he will keep his promise )

Today while browsing Google Video i came across some clippings his performance at a college fest. just watch this video to know what it take to touch the heart of everyone.

Another One From Dr. Kumar Vishvas . it 's titelled "इक पगली लड़की " .
its real touching poem with a hint of humour and day to day life of Indian youth . Watch the video for compelete poetry

In my school days i used to read and Admire Dr.Harivansh Rai Bacchan and Suryakant Tripathi "Nirala" but i never knew any contemporary poet worth mentioning other than Dr. Vishvaas . it Might sound like a tall comparison to those who know and understand poetry but still i will go ahead and say the Dr. Vishvaas is Dr.Harivansrai Bacchan for My Generation . if you have seen the video I know you will agree with me . Don't You ??

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