Whatever...

Very recently I have been following Jason Fried's posts on 37signals.com. I am impressed by his minimalist thoughts and the whole idea of customers 'growing out of' and 'growing into' your product. Per Jason, there are just a certain simple features that customers really want and a product company should strive to be the best at those features. But beyond these features, your customers will always have some desires and will keep asking for more features. One should learn to say no to such demands and crowd the Product with features that only a few of your customers will actually use. These frills not only hamper the performance of the product technically, but also make the Product manufacturer waste a lot of effort in the form of product support and other allied activities. This seems to have been working for folks at 37signals.com and many more such companies (SFDC, Flip Video recorders etc.) I then started thinking of this philosophy in the context of Indian IT co...

Some time ago I had post on a couple of business ideas . That is when the question of monetization came up. There was this portal I had envisaged where tenants and landlords could rate each other and the question was how does one monetize this? Thinking a little deeper on this, I came about thinking to myself - ' I have an idea which I think people could find useful. To make this idea a potential business activity, how could I make people pay for it?'. Then it struck me that one should think the same way about one's talent(s). We all have a talent. That is a given. Singing, dancing, painting, acting, photography and so many more like that. If we can deliberate sufficiently at monetizing at (making people pay for it, or finding people who will), we convert our talent into business. That is when your interest becomes your work and work becomes interesting! Shouldn't be tough ...isn't it?

Last weekend, with a lot of enthusiasm (and people) I went to see Rajaneeti - A Prakash Jha film with some of the best names in the Indian film Industry. By now all of you must have seen the film, so I will not get into detailing the plot or the storyline. Let's straight get to the point - did I like it? No. It was OK! But when Prakash Jha makes an OK movie, it is not acceptable. I would have liked an OK Ram Gopa Verma movie but not PJ . Probably Shool & Apaharan ( I have not seen Mrutyudand ), built up a lot of expectations. Rajaneeti , needless to say, is better than many of the recent films like Teen Patti, MNIK and what not. It has more substance than a one liner and the effort into story and screenplay shows. PJ has spent enough effort (and money) on casting with brilliant characters drawn from Mahabharat . In my opinion, nowhere else in the whole world, is there a characterisation like there is in Hindu mythology. None of the characters are black or white and a...

For the uninformed (you can't be if you are on Facebook ), I bought a Royal Enfield Standard 350cc motorcycle on 25 th Novemeber 2009. This has been the fulfilment of a long (8 years!) cherished dream. Here we are... After exactly three months I faced my first breakdown on my way to work on a Friday. The throttle cable snapped. Thankfully I had a spare at home and I was pretty confident I could replace it myself. Having lived with a 1984 model Bajaj Chetak for 5 years, I was in the habit of applying first aid myself. This wasn't as easy as seemed though. I manage to get the handle side of the throttle cable out. But had issues with the engine ( carb side). I checked with fellow biker Aravind (who also owns a Standard 350 that is as old as him). He said it was a pretty simple process and promised to join me in 30 mins . But once he came, we realised, RE had done some changes that had lead to this problem. Here is the issue - If you refer to the picture above, I was suppo...

I had twitted about 2 business ideas and had promised the details would be on the blog. So here goes... JustGoa - See a different Goa every time I have been consulted at least about 15-20 times by different people for their leisure trips to Goa. This idea is a fallout of the experiences. This is a Goa specific travel company. I know there are hordes of Goan tour operators. But this one is with a different marketing strategy. This sort of concentrates on repeat business. The tours are thematic. Some of the themes would be - Chillax Religious Eco Celebrations (Weddings, Anniversaries, Receptions) Corporate (Conferences, team building exercises, product launches) The main thrust should be on maintaining the visit history of the tourists and ensuring they do not get bored with repeat visits. Aligning Marketing with capacity for special programs in monsoon, around long weekends etc. will definitely bring in a new angle to this business. 10ant.com I am not sure if there is anything like t...

The emergence of language (spoken and not programing) has revolutionised the development of human race. All through history and ancient scriptures, I see an expression of most complex human feelings through language. Different forms like fables, poetry, shlokas etc. were used to build 'life problems' and solutions to those problems. The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, The Bhagwad Geeta, The Vedas, The Upanishads are just a few of the known literary jewels . Not just in Hindu religion but the Quaraan and the Bible are also huge achievements in terms of development of language. Though diluted to a great extent, I see the trend continue until about 100 years ago or maybe even 50. In Marathi & Hindi, one can find substantial literary work in the last but one generation. I cannot say that about our generation though. writing a letter was always an expressive act for our grandparents. Words has to carry both, meaning and feelings. But the telephone and Internet made us more blunt. La...

Its not the first time this is happening, neither will it be last. An urge to cry, break into tears, yell, explode. At the same time control the tears for your office desk is not the place. the feeling is like - buying a land on the riverside hoping to make heaven out of it. Toil to sow and cultivate fruits, flowers and big trees, animals - cows, dogs and birds - my idea of heaven. And then it never rains. Your land is barren now - a vast emptiness lies before you as you kneel and weep your heart out. Someone bought his SUV, someone built his 5 star luxury housing complex and your are paying the price because you need the rain for the little heaven of your dreams. The SUV wallah & the guy in the luxurious apartment are digging bore-wells for their dreams. No longer is someone singing for happiness or writing poems or gardening. All of this and more is done for money - to buy SUVs & 5 star luxury apartments. Are we earning to live or living to earn? I didn't let the feeli...

The title is a mere analogy I have drawn, the topic of the post is more to do with IT and IT consulting. I have done 2 green field implementations, one in Telecom domain in India and one in pharmaceutical retail in the UK. Most of my dwelling has been in the Marketing and Sales Force Automation (SFA) space in both these implementations. While the Telecom implementation was in PeopleSoft CRM, the retail implementation was in the Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) domain. When we first started with the Indian implementation, we faced major challenges like loosely defined processes, inadequate change management, untrained staff etc. It is here that I first thought if IT could really help our customer to achieve what they wanted - A better CRM? On a post dinner walk then it struck me. The Director of IISC Bengaluru had once said in one of his speeches - "e-governance is not about IT. IT is just a tool. e-governance should first start with a willingness to change" This is the...

My morning, when it starts, starts with three prayers I say. Two of them praising lord Ganesh and one of them for Godess Vijayadurga. Why these 2 Gods specifically? Well the truth is these are the only prayers I remember from my childhood. Prayers are my way of saying 'aal izz well' to my heart. :-). I relate all the three prayers to the safety cucoons I have enjoyed till date. When I close my eyes and say each of these prayers, there is a distinct image associated with each one of them. The first one is Ganapati Stotra , probably one of the first proper prayer my parents taught me. Pranamya Shirasa Devam ( Vishwa Vinayak) With Meaning This is a natural progression after your child has learnt the nursery rhymes of prayers. We stayed in a small rented house then, and we did not have a separate prayer room there. There was a small wooden Mandir  hung on a wall just above the dinig table. I would sit on the table and say this prayer along with other prayers . A prominant ima...

Consider a scenario where you are starting a new business, and are fairly novice in the area. Will you build competency first, or get business first? Is it not the chicken and egg situation that all entrepreneurs go through? What is the solution then? I am of the opinion that one must first build competency, whatever be the costs. You may have to offer a service free to the customer to gain his confidence and make a mark in the market. There is no other way you can offset the apprehension in the prospective customer's mind. Consider this as the cost of entry into the business or a one time marketing cost. Ones you have put some experience behind you, made some name for yourself, it will be fairly easy to demonstrate capability in further proposals as you will have credentials to show off. However, if you chose to win a deal first and learn at the expense of your customer, I look at that as a big risk. Yes, the risk does have commensurate rewards, but not worthwhile I think. The ver...

After spending more than 24 hours at home, and having chawal-kadhi for 3 straight meals, I suggested to Bijou, we go out for our dinner today. Ruling out any junk food consumption, Bijou suggested we go to a Punjabi place he new from the last lunch he had with Anurag and his TeamBHp mates. If the approach road was any indicator of how the place would be, I wouldn't even have lokoed that way. But, the bumpy ride was misleading and so was the ambience. The place looked like a roadside dhaba. There was a Punjabi Auntiji standing next to the entrance. That kind of assured me that the cooking would be supervised and there were lesser chaces of a chole with sambar masala being served. We ordered a Punjabi Chicken and some plain parathas. The punjabi chicken was well cooked and just sufficiently spicy. But not much Punjabi from the ones served in other restaurant. How I wish we had tried the achari chicken. The parathas were freshly made and served hot but not rotis. I think rotis were ma...

The dinner tonight was at '4 Seasons' Madhapur . Right across the road was my old office (the erstwhile Satyam Computers), it was literally a trip down the memory lane. This restaurant, on the second floor is nothing much to talk about in the name of ambiance . Having said that, they have certainly put their attention in the right place - the food. Ours was a simple 3 course dinner - Tomato Soup, Chicken Malai Kabab & Chicken Biryani . Being one of those 'nice' places where everyone wants to go straight from their office, this place is always crowded (and definitely on a Friday evening). If you go there with a group of more than 2, be prepared to wait, wait really long, argue and even fight for a place. But once you are there, be ready to eat one of the finest chicken you may have ever laid your hands on (or dug your teeth into). They have all sorts of chicken preparations. After my reduced appetite over the last couple of years (surprisingly after my marriage ;...

Last evening me and Shveta visited the city. It was the first time we were in an explorer mood since we shifted base to Hyderabad. Unlike Pune, which was our last bastion, Hyderabad has fewer places worth visiting at an hour's drive. By 'places' I mean places like Mulshi, Lonavla, Sinhgad and places like that where you can find spot just to sit and relax in the company of nature. So we decided just to head straight to some place in the city and just have an evening exporing the place. We decided to take the train to Begumpet and explore that part of Hyderabad. Although Begumpet is mostly to do with shopping for pearls, huge apparel malls, Westside, Landmark and other big stores. After disembarking the MMTS train at Begumpet, we walked past the newly built flyover, the ITC kakatiya and reached Landmark. It is really difficult to walk past a bookstore if you really dig books or movies. So we entered Landmark and spent a good hour and half there, looking for books and DVDs. Ca...

It took me a bit of googling to figure out that it is the right half of brain that is to do with imagination and artistic ability. So far removed I am from this part of life that I don't even remember which part of brain we use for it. I recall a conversation I had at work couple of days ago. I was making a point there, that as we are trying to get better at communication, we are getting worse at expression. We may be able to write a concise email about all the things we need to get done for a project. But we hardly know to write a letter (or say an email) to our friends recalling our good old days in school. One of my colleague was of the opinion that the younger generation is smarter and faster than we are. But smarter and faster at what? Math? Computers? Science? How many of the children have a passion today? How many of them waste hours and days at painting? or may be swimming? The younger generation is getting increasingly left-brain-centric. Very logical and calculative in th...

Naseeruddin Shah and the hidden talent called Arshad Warsi...watch out for Ishqiya by Abhishek Choubey who assisted Vishal Bharadwaj in Onkara and other films. Here is the trailer...enjoy!!

I am just back from a day trip to Mulshi - a scenic place near Pune. After returning from the UK, I spent most of my last 2 months at home recovering from the knee injury. The mood is a little upbeat. But off late I have been observing a change in mood as the Sunday Sun moves westwards. An anxiety starts creeping in. Mostly to do with work. What is in store on Monday? Will tomorrow be painful? Is the Manager going to throw some new issue at me? Am I missing a deadline? Lot of such anxious thoughts that make my Sunday evening rather nervous. As I wake up on Monday morning, I am completely exhausted by these thoughts instead of being fresh from a weekend. I have been trying to analyse what this could be. It appears that most of these thoughts crop up from a kind of insecurity or may be lack of confidence. I am scared of being pointed out as a loser, someone who did not perform. Or I fear I may be betraying my boss's expectations. There is always a struggle to be right - never to be w...

Most products have the cost of failure built into the price of the product. For example, a film. When a film gets made, there are so many things at stake, that the all these risks are covered by the premium on the ticket. If a film ticket was prices simply by dividing the cost + profit by the number of people watching, it would be pretty cheap. Or consider for example, the price of a car. The insurance premium that the manufacturer pays is built into the cost of the car. Or say a doctor, who conducts very risky operations get paid highly...and now you ask what's the point?? The point is, this doesn't happen with a farmer.A farmer faces all the vagries of nature or monsoon. Alll his risks are unmeasurable and unpredictable. But does he get to decide his pricing? Why does market not behave perfectly when it comes to agriculture? Why doesn't the theory of high risk - high return apply to agriculture? How does a farmer hedge his risks then is the main question! The answer as I ...

"Film piracy funding terror: US thinktank" I have read about this many times before. Since the time I was convinced, I stopped buying pirated films and music from the street. Have a read.

If this is unbiased media, it is worth the read and raises many questions - here goes

I am thinking of a business idea. We have small shops all throughout India selling computer hardware. Along with this they sell or give pirated windows OS and MS Office for free. This is no doubt illegal an the only reason MS is mum about this is probably because of their business model. They would like the world to be dependent on them so that most applications are developed for Windows. They can anytime enforce the anti-piracy crusade making people buy their OS. Is it possible to create a niche for oneself in this market by promoting open source software? Most of the home users tend to use multi-media, web-browser and office tools like word editor and spreadsheet. With the wide gamut of Linux flavours available now and companies like Open Office spending a lot of time and talent on development, I think is it very much possible. This can even be coupled with user training in these areas. Spreading the usage of open source software among the lay users and small business users can cr...