http://home.tiscali.nl/
1st Line is Seconds
2nd Line is Minutes
3rd Line is Hours
4th Line is the Day of the Week
5th Line is Today's Date
6th Line is the Month
and 7th Line is the Year
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Innovation on the webpage :-)
It's amazing ... don’t know who made this.
http://home.tiscali.nl/
1st Line is Seconds
2nd Line is Minutes
3rd Line is Hours
4th Line is the Day of the Week
5th Line is Today's Date
6th Line is the Month
and 7th Line is the Year
http://home.tiscali.nl/
1st Line is Seconds
2nd Line is Minutes
3rd Line is Hours
4th Line is the Day of the Week
5th Line is Today's Date
6th Line is the Month
and 7th Line is the Year
How to detect Hidden Camera in TrialRooms of shops and malls? ?
Issued in public interest :-)
In front of the trial room take your mobile and make sure that you are able to make calls with your mobile phone...
Next, enter the trial room, and make a call again.....
If u can't make a call...
There is a hidden camera!!
Science behind it:
This is due to the interference of fiber optic during the signal transfer, if a hidden camera is present.
In front of the trial room take your mobile and make sure that you are able to make calls with your mobile phone...
Next, enter the trial room, and make a call again.....
If u can't make a call...
There is a hidden camera!!
Science behind it:
This is due to the interference of fiber optic during the signal transfer, if a hidden camera is present.
PASTEURIZATION KILLS MILK!
As for the health-conscious consumers who need REAL milk, pasteurized milk is fooling them into an illusion of milk, whereas fact is they are just consuming some white liquid that has near-zero essential nutrition.
What’s worse is all this artificial treatments to milk (and other food products) have created a generation of weak individuals who have weak immunity levels…due to excessive hygiene of course. This should be a reality-check for readers who say “raw milk may just be full of harmful bacteria”…I am sure the human race existed, in fact they thrived better long before Pasteur was heard of.
Pasteurization had set out to accomplish 2 things: destruction of germs, and preventing milk from turning sour (this is funny…because sour milk is super good for invalids, as a laxative). It did achieve the mentioned goals, at a greater cost that destroys the purpose itself.
Pasteurization ended up destroying even the beneficial bacteria which is why we drink milk. Not just that, pasteurization destroys nutrition in the milk. And this measure taken to prevent milk from souring, creates more favorable conditions for UNDESIRABLE GERMS to MULTIPLY very very fast.
The problem which Pasteur missed is that, its dirty milk causes menace, NOT raw milk. RAW MILK IS GOOD.
Some zealots say raw milk can cause tuberculosis. I have discovered some studies conducted on this assumption which revealed that pasteurized milk had also caused tuberculosis.
The last discovery I made is, pasteurization is the main offender when it comes to turning the much –needed calcium in milk, into insoluble by the body! RESULTS: rickets, bad teeth, nervous troubles. This also depletes the phosphorus associated with Calcium. RESULTS: serious effect on bone and brain formation. Pasteurization also destroys 20 percent of the iodine present in raw milk. RESULTS: constipation.
Now, for those special few people in denial (who ironically also happen to be intellectually stimulated), here are the numbers and figures: http://www.karlloren.com/aajonus/p15.htm. End Of Discussion :-)
Instead of forcing dealers to set up expensive machinery for turning raw milk into a mutant white zero nutrition liquid, can the government ensure our dairy-farmers produce clean, raw milk?
For more information: http://www.realmilk.com/
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
1 comments
|
Labels:
Consumer,
Culture,
Funny Planet,
HEALTH,
human rights,
India,
Media,
Nutrition,
Organic Products,
Technology,
Wildlife and Environment,
World
Life of an IT Professional
Ironic, yet true, isn't it :-)
Thursday, January 7, 2010
0
comments
|
Labels:
Information Technology,
IT,
PROSPEROUS 2010,
software professional,
Technology,
US Financial Market
Benefits of a Professional Resume
Come January, 2010…
Come January, 2010…and companies are gearing up for a hiring fever. I’m sure the smart ones among us are revisiting job portals in lunch breaks already…
Here is the best time to avoid a few mistakes we made in past job hunts. Have you wondered why most high paying companies we apply for have never responded? This is why:
- Too many resumes flood the recruiter’s inbox. Result: Your resume gets an unfair 30 seconds only, to attract the recruiter’s attention. High chances of your resume getting filtered out, exist.
- Your resume may lack focus
- Is your resume duties-driven instead of accomplishments-driven?
- Incorrect ordering of items can disinterest the recruiter
- Subconsciously, we highlight our skills the way we want the recruiter to see, not the way the recruiter wants it to be!
- For many companies that use data mining HR software, a resume that lacks specific keywords may not be noticed among thousands of other similar resumes! Yes it’s unfair.
These are just few of the goof-ups we make, in an uninformed, unintended hurry. What can you do to break the wall between you and that desirable job opening you are eyeing? Get in touch and Let the Experts Do what they do best...creating the unmatched resume no interviewer can overlook.
SOLUTION:
Only a professional resume engineer knows how to give your resume that sharpness and accuracy to engage the recruiter’s interest in your candidature! You will carry with you the unputdownable advantage of a sharp, impression-cutting CV that outmatches other applicants’ far more skilled or experienced than you.
Please email your resume to gauravnath.vision@gmail.com for a free consultation (analysis of keywords, format, and expert ranking).We will respond in 24 hours.
This will give you a realistic idea of the weight of your resume, based on which you can decide how much rework is required on your resume (along with other benefits from us) to attract interviews.
Friday, December 4, 2009
0
comments
|
Labels:
Career,
Entrepreneurship,
India,
Information Technology,
Job,
Technology,
US Financial Market,
World,
Youth
"Tresspassers will be recruited"
Another PJ:
Security Sign outside an IT-campus?
"Tresspassers will be recruited"
Security Sign outside an IT-campus?
"Tresspassers will be recruited"
The IT-Dream isn't Infosys or Wipro, anymore. The IT-Dream is a weekend.
Egads! its 5:33 a.m....I better get my nap...its a Saturday! :-)
Want to see what happens to the herd of evolved IT-industry professionals when they are un-caged after a long week of "job-satisfaction"?
- Hit the Brigade Road: Blank, confused faces...I call them Zombie Stares...
- Hit the Forum Mall: holding hands with their GF-BF/GF-GF/BF-BF and yet staring at the hot babe/guy passing by..like i always say, "the joy in a relationship is either in getting into one, or getting out of one...not in the relationship for most young dudes and duddete's (LOL) today"
- Hit the pubs and disco's: Young ambitious IT pro's (familiarising to "social" drinking culture) acting "faithful" to their managers (we all know, recession fading away, and January around the corner, payrise is just a month of "hard work" away).....or just a bunch of young "cool" dudes and dudette's who haven't experienced the high of Sudarshan Kriya yet, and want to drink bottoms-up, get sloshed, do naughty things at night and wake up with a hangover on Sunday
- Knock at appartments in Koramangla/BTM/Marathalli/ITPL, at noon time: A sleepy-eyed young IT professional whom you just rudely awoke from his weekly slumber, or a dripping-wet Mamma's boy who knows the benefits of waking up early on Saturday and doing his week-long dirty laundry (mostly in Bangalore, the BairraAmma's are on leave on Saturdays :-))
- Don't hit the Barista's or Cafe Coffee Day's: You'll only find first-dates, about-to-break-up-couples, school reunions, or business plans :-)
This is not a joke, but a reality check for those who:
- are not yet disillusioned about the misnomer "JOB-SATISFACTION"
- haven't learnt to meditate and need Axe Deo Sprays and Haute Couture to cover up years of SUBTLE accumulated emotional garbage, intellectual saturation and physical stress (doesn't show until you ae 30)
- still have those American dreams
See you until my next post...Love Bow Wow
"There exists a better world, a few breaths away." -Khurshed Batliwala (lovingly called, Bawa)
Protect your Inventions and Ideas
T O D A Y
...is a great day for Science...is a great day for generating business with my yesterday's idea
...is a great day for launching my product
...is a great day to share my latest invention with the world
T O D A Y
.............
.............
GET YOUR INVENTIONS AND IDEAS PATENTED!
It may bloody simple be a revolutionary babies diaper, or an idea swimming in your head waiting to materialize as a life-saving contribution to mankind...and it IS an intellectual property!
Mankind is good at imitation. And there isn't any dearth of PROMISCUOUS COPYING...Apple and Microsoft have been doing it out of mutual "love" and "respect" (seen only during the lawsuits)....so have many others. But it damages the potential immensity of the impact a business can gain otherwise. So the wise always protect their ideas...they patent it. The street-smart always register their trademarks. This prevents/excludes the seemingly-innocuous neighbor down the next IT Park from 'making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing your invention' while you are chilling at your reclining chair.
The good news is, it is a streamlined process to file a patent and get it registered. The bad news is, India's antagonism to software patents. The good news is there are around 200 patent offices around the globe. The bad news is, a guy-next-door wanting to protect his idea isn't differently-abled to create a near-perfect draft, so it could possibly be rejected in an office action, or it is highly likely your patent would contain loopholes that a street smart business-in-line can get around and use in his/her business. The good news is, my wizened, knowledgeable patent attorney is available.
Cover all frayed edges when filing for a patent/trademark/copyright, by consulting a patent attorney, because he would have the experience and expertise of the law, and the outsourced skills of the legal services firm which would search for similar inventions-validate novelty-write independent claims, draft the claims for invention, respond to office actions (when the examiner at the PTO rejects, which they always do, unless they are pitched against a reincarnation of Mr. A. Einstein), and finally have it approved, and the patent granted! :-)
Apple iPhone...total No ! No ! here's why
Are you an Apple junkie? good :-)
Are you an iPhone fad ? baddd...this is why ? pretty startling though....
and for a young Indian consumer, 5 hours of talktime is NOT a steal...not even when you have the snazziest looking phone in hand, but you get only 5 hours of talktime....sheeeeeezzz!
maybe Apple can reconsider its strategy for the Indian launch of iPhone (which is again more than 40 days after its US launch)....or perhaps it just cant.
Science of the TiNY
Small is BeAuTiFuL
Nanotechnology is the science of the extremely extremely tiny….chotu chotu chhotttuuuuuu
It allows man to manipulate matter at the nanoscale (down to 1/100,000 the width of a human hair) to create new and unique materials and products.
Think this, if the world were scaled down so that people averaged 100 nanometers tall, the Moon would be about 8 inches (20.5 cm) across—that’s the size of a soccer ball. The Earth would be roughly 30 inches (76 cm) in diameter. (The average human height (in the
Nanotechnology is more than just shrinking, but fundamentally changing the internal structure of compounds! Pure carbon may have two familiar avatars: diamond and graphite (pencil lead). But by arranging carbon into precise nanometer-scale structures, a new product can be made that is up to thirty times stronger than steel, yet is 1/6 th the weight. This form of carbon (called a “nanotube,” or, more accurately, “nanotubes”) is one of the earliest forms of nanotechnology.
Today new nanotech products hit the market at the Rate of 3-4 Per Week, and Nanotechnology Consumer Products Are in Your Mouth and On Your Face
- from lightweight-yet-strong bicycle frames and tennis rackets (made from carbon nanotubes), sunscreens (which don’t make your skin look pasty white), tupperware (from antimicrobial nanoscale silver, prevents food stored in them from going bad), air purifier, antibacterial water taps, clothes treated with nano-engineered coatings (stain-proof or static-free clothes!), to pet hairdressing appliances, pet food containers, pet chains and cages, computer chips using nanoscale components are ubiquitous in consumer electronics, from computers to mp3 players, digital cameras to video game consoles, more than 35 automotive products (including GM’s Hummer2…ooh!).
The colorful and searchable list of nanotechnology merchandise—containing everything from nanotech diamonds and cooking oil, to golf clubs and iPhones—is available free here.
Now the potentially bad news….
-> There are several environmental issues and health hazards that emerge from the existing micro-manufacturing (called top-down manufacturing of nanomaterials), and international and national organizations strongly recommend that evaluations of nanomaterials be done in a life-cycle perspective.
Concern over exploitation and depletion of scarce resources
emerges because when products get smaller and the components that include the rare materials reach the nanoscale, economy is the not the most urgent issue but increased usage of rare materials like Galium, fullerens, scandium may be foreseen due to the expected widespread use of nanotechnological products, the recycling will be more difficult , resulting in non-recoverable dissemination of scarce resources.
The fact that the extraction of most rare materials uses more energy and generates more waste than more abundant materials is reflected in the energy intensity of a range of materials
| Material | Energy intensity of materials (MJ/kg) |
| Glass | 15 |
| Steel | 59 |
| Copper | 94 |
| Ferrite | 59 |
| Aluminium | 214 |
| Plastics | 84 |
| Epoxy resin | 140 |
| Tin | 230 |
| Lead | 54 |
| Nickel | 340 |
| Silver | 1570 |
| Gold | 84000 |
Carbon Nanotube Safety
Nanoscale silver followed by carbon (including carbon nanotubes and fullerenes), and zinc (including zinc oxide), titanium (including titanium dioxide), silica and gold are the most widely used in nanotech products.
These spaghetti-like structures are carbon nanotubes viewed under an electron microscope (Photo by Anastasios John Hart)
Writing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, a research team found that long carbon nanotubes, when injected into the body cavities of mice, could behave in a way similar to the way asbestos fibers behave when inhaled in sufficient quantity, forming lesions that, in the case of asbestos, lead to mesothelioma (a lung cancer that can take 30-40 years to appear following exposure), with an exception in shorter or curly nanotubes.
(Widespread exposure to asbestos has been described as the worst occupational health disaster in
Asbestos fibers are harmful because they are thin enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, but sufficiently long to confound the lungs’ built-in clearance mechanisms for getting rid of particles.)
Despite a 2006 worldwide investment of $12.4 billion in nanotech R&D, comparatively little was spent on examining nanotechnology’s potential environmental, health and safety risks.
This is in direct relevance of nanotechnology’s capability in treating Spinal Cord Injuries, Diabetes, Heart and Parkinson’s Disease. Imagine a world where damaged organs in your body—kidneys, liver, heart—can be stimulated to heal themselves. Envision people tragically paralyzed whose injured spinal cords can be repaired. Think about individuals suffering from the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s relieved of their symptoms – completely and permanently.
It fuels a scientist to have a wish-list of manifesting room-temperature superconductivity, matter assembly bottom-up like nature does, building cognitive machines…and questions like “Are matter, information and energy the same?” (this is my most favorite question because this is exactly where the pathways of science and spirituality fuse…to prove that both are complementary.), “What happens when we merge nanotechnology with a cell?”
Apple's iPod Nano may be small, but now researchers have made a radio that really deserves the title "nano." – Mason Inman
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/071105-smallest-radio.html
In a dramatic demonstration of early research on the self-assembly capability of nanotechnology, Dr. Samuel I. Stupp (director of the Institute of BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University) showed paralyzed lab mice with spinal cord injuries regain the ability to walk using their hind limbs six weeks after a simple injection of a purpose-designed nanomaterial. This can enable individualized patient treatments in previously unimaginable ways.
Think this:
doctors in
Public health workers in
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative have pitched in investments towards this research already.
If the
We are visionaries, very much attached to the reality- but the ideas must be anchored in logic and more importantly, must be socially and environmentally responsible.
How Do I Choose My Web Design Company?
This is a simple but effective article on the ground zero points to consider when narrowing the search for an ideal Web Design Company that meets your requirements...nicely written by the Founder of a Company that was incubated out of a garage with just 2 employees:
Today he has over 400 clients in seven countries, including the Ministry of Finance and the Uttar Pradesh government. Magnon has a turnover of Rs 58 lakh and is targeting Rs 1 crore next year.
His experiences has spawned the book, Build From Scratch, which is aimed at the budding entrepreneurs. (It corners practical issues startups face, like high-pressure sales management and manpower retention.
The Barbarian Manager, his next book, is on the way. It will examine how managers are programmed to survive aggression in the corporate sector. Sounds cool :-)
"I set up Magnon Solutions with no technical background of my own -- in fact, I had to take a friend's help to even pick a couple of kids from NIIT who would best suit our requirements. I couldn't even afford to buy computers -- I had to rent two.
We started operations out of a refurbished generator room in south Delhi, with just one phone line for making calls as well as using the Internet -- which meant that we would go online only in the evenings and ended up staying in office until 10.30 pm. We got just Rs 5,000 for our first order, which was to set up a website for an artist based in Varanasi."
............and it took a new high with 100% growth every year.Today he has over 400 clients in seven countries, including the Ministry of Finance and the Uttar Pradesh government. Magnon has a turnover of Rs 58 lakh and is targeting Rs 1 crore next year.
His experiences has spawned the book, Build From Scratch, which is aimed at the budding entrepreneurs. (It corners practical issues startups face, like high-pressure sales management and manpower retention.
The Barbarian Manager, his next book, is on the way. It will examine how managers are programmed to survive aggression in the corporate sector. Sounds cool :-)
TECHNOLOGY
Technology & Spirituality
The purpose of technology is to harness nature to bring information and comfort to human beings. When spiritual values - human values - are ignored and neglected, instead of bringing comfort, technology brings fear and destruction.
Technology without human values would see nature as a dead object. Science gives an insight into the life of nature and spirituality makes the nature come alive.
For example, in the eyes of children, there is nothing dead in the world - animals, trees, the sun and the moon - they all have life, they all have emotions, they all have feelingsʼnn the eyes of a stressed and ignorant person, even human beings are like robots - objects!
Technology without spirituality is destructive. Spirituality is the technology of consciousness, and the whole world is the play and display of consciousness.
- H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Technology without human values would see nature as a dead object. Science gives an insight into the life of nature and spirituality makes the nature come alive.
For example, in the eyes of children, there is nothing dead in the world - animals, trees, the sun and the moon - they all have life, they all have emotions, they all have feelingsʼnn the eyes of a stressed and ignorant person, even human beings are like robots - objects!
Technology without spirituality is destructive. Spirituality is the technology of consciousness, and the whole world is the play and display of consciousness.
- H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
RUBY is the latest bling bling in technology !
Hello everyone....heard of the latest buzz called Ruby ...? No? You wudnt have heard of it, if you r one of those guys/gals at one of those standard Companies who dont want to take innovative risks, and you probably are happy with the seemingly stable and "SAFE" career platforms..."safe" , because you think its worthwhile from a career perspective to sit on a huge pool of resources and support community that centers around only .NET or J2EE or yadda yadda yadda....and so YOU ARE IN A COMFORT ZONE ! B.U.T. unknowingly YOU ARE WAITING FOR THE ICE BERG TO MELT.....isnt it ? well try this now...its "bling bling" (a hip word among the youth for glittering accessories) among the technology enthusiasts ....its called RUBY....its relatively new, but stable enough to have set a lot of technical enterpreneurs interested...
RUBY is a dynamic (interpreted), open source programming (scripting) language WITH A FOCUS ON convention over messy configuration, Its elegant syntax attributes to its simplicity and productivity(ITS LIGHTWEIGHT !!)in object-oriented programming.
This should giv yu a hang of it (for now)
http://www2.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html
NOW wats Ruby On Rails (or RoR).....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...its a "full-stack"(meaning it provides "Convention over configuration" and "Dont Repeat Yourself" features, on both Client-as-well-as-Server side features(!!), and leads the race among next-genre of web app frameworks ...highlighting features such as "scaffolding", "object-relational mapping" and simple installation. The FULL STACK means that it supports an "MVC" (Model-View-Controller) architecture [yep! :-)]...back to track...RoR is a "full stack" web application famework , written in Ruby (bling! bling!).
It aims to increase the speed and ease with which database-driven web sites can be created, and offers skeleton code frameworks (scaffolding) from the outset.
http://www.rubyonrails.org/
RUBY is a dynamic (interpreted), open source programming (scripting) language WITH A FOCUS ON convention over messy configuration, Its elegant syntax attributes to its simplicity and productivity(ITS LIGHTWEIGHT !!)in object-oriented programming.
This should giv yu a hang of it (for now)
http://www2.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html
NOW wats Ruby On Rails (or RoR).....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...its a "full-stack"(meaning it provides "Convention over configuration" and "Dont Repeat Yourself" features, on both Client-as-well-as-Server side features(!!), and leads the race among next-genre of web app frameworks ...highlighting features such as "scaffolding", "object-relational mapping" and simple installation. The FULL STACK means that it supports an "MVC" (Model-View-Controller) architecture [yep! :-)]...back to track...RoR is a "full stack" web application famework , written in Ruby (bling! bling!).
It aims to increase the speed and ease with which database-driven web sites can be created, and offers skeleton code frameworks (scaffolding) from the outset.
http://www.rubyonrails.org/
Ruby involves very little mental overhead...so programmers tend to be HAPPY PROGRAMMERS ! and bling! bling! too ;)
Some SW Companies tend to stay safe , means they are legacy..like teh Hanging Gradens of Babylon (implies, --> its now available only in pictures..yu c d point ?)...which donot wish to exploit (sorry bad word, but kinda fits in wen lean mean business is in play (the only exception I can currently think of, is http://www.sumerusoftwaresolutions.com, Technologists with Conscience at VASUDHA EVA KUTUMBAKAM :) ) the best of new potential technology, because there is a disconnect among the bushy-bearded dodge-ball enthusiast managers towards any new technology (not that Ruby is new) ....and also that, among programmers and developers there is this "opinion" ("popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world." - Thomas Carlyle) that development is done only for developments sake so that their careers are (SEEMINGLY) safe ...but for technologists who have a vision beyond sight, who wish to do "smart work" (by smart work I mean those who wish to use newer technologies, not the "copy-paste" jobs that SW Engineers do) it boils down to the bling bling technologies like RoR (You-Know-Who), where you are "heard" and "seen" and yur contributions add value to a FUN, LIGHT WEIGHT, and SMART programming community around the "flat" globe.
Give it a try...its a productive and a healthy addiction! I have already dived into the tutorials and I feel its worth the try with RUBY !
-just a bit of observation-
Swastiastu ! (its in Indonesian lingo...figure it out, meaning is beautiful)
Here are some IT facts to digest, for people who are religious abut technology fads...something like being part of the 'revolution'...or maybe savingt he world from obsolence by being part of the latest buzzwords..(and of course I m proud to b on blogspot, the best blogging site !)
Nielsen//NetRatings
TOP blogging sites in September 2007
AudienceGrowth
September 2006 September 2007 YTY
Blogger 19,751 ---- 29,596------ 50%
Six Apart TypePad 7,525------10,992 --------46%
WordPress.com 2,673 10,424 290%
tmz.com 6,000 10,293 72%
LiveJournal 3,685 4,160 13%
Xanga.com 5,528 3,008 -46%
Perezhilton.com 1,234 2,203 79%
Engadget 1,503 2,021 34%
Gizmodo 763* 1,891 148%
Thatsfit N/A 1,726
TOP search engines in September 2007
Engine-- Searches-- Growth-- YTY Share
Google ---3,994,158--- 41.3%---- 54.0%
Yahoo! ---1,443,244--- 9.3%---- 19.5%
MSN -----890,685 --- 71.5%---- 12.0%
AOL ---- 444,493 --- 24.0%--- 6.0%
Ask.com--158,969 --- 4.5% --- 2.2%
TOP social networking sites in September 2007
Site ---------------------Audience Growth(Sep 2007) YTY
Myspace.com------------58,581 --------------------------24%
Facebook ----------------18,090 ------------------------133%
Classmates Online-------13,313 ---------------------------0%
Windows Live Spaces----10,275-------------------------- 32%
AOL Hometown ----------7,685------------------------ -23%
Reunion.com -------------4,845------------------------ 3%
LinkedIn -----------------4,075------------------------ 131%
AOL People Connection--- 4,017------------------------ -34%
(ahem...my blogger.com still reigns....mmmmm)
Quoting Steve Ballmer, "MS Search capabilities are goung to dunk the other guys" !!
....goodness gracious !where are we headed mates?? Maybe I dont have the legendary expertise and experience as Stevie, but perhaps being in a desert too long can be illusioning as one's focus gets blurred in terms of the difference between a "blurred being in the zone"guy and a "fresh outsider's view of the larger picture"guy ..so as far as I perceive it...certain startegies at MS have become an ill-boding, just the oxymoron way certain other strategies have enhanced the Company's adoptability( like a base ecosystem of Windows based GUI's to market and grip the zillions of people around, and then to deploy marketing strategies and eye-candies heavily on these old cash cows...the same way as wine does...(but again Software != Wine), and of course sharing code (Windows XP code, .NET, etc))...plummeting back to strategies that look like the silence before a storm , I see Steve's strategies in pushing MS into minds and souls of people, rather too aggressive and pushy, that also in 2 risky scenarios
>> more and more number of bugs and patches that bog down the acceptability of newer MS products in a fight by users who insist old is better (the same way that Vista SP2 has been postponed, and support for XP2 has been retained)
>>2nd scenario, overly diverging the previously efforts of the teams across the world, causing a pattern I would classify as "concave lens diverging parallel rays of a light beam"...Steve you are the lens , dont you see it ?? The effect shall be the opposite of what a convex lens like other competent search engine giants(their biggest competitors) are doing, "convex lens converges parallel beam" ...the over all effect, the efforts are not being focussed, the upto-an-extent-justified-but-not-effective-in-long-run strategy of diversifying should also be folllowed with a laser focus on the divesified products, and more importantly, not just retaining the value of an array of relatively-older product arsenals, but to actually improve them aggressively...andthe golden rule to learn is to LISTEN . Listen to the loud noises blogs are making from people in startups, analysts who care to write about your Organisation, your products. Listen. And then strategize, it WILL go a long way and save much last-minute bug fixes, and patches which we are so unpopular about. And here I emphasize upon the gem of our evolution...our ability to "create". And creation happens only when we are inspired, or in more gross terms, when neccesity knocks on the door...so let your teams INNOVATE and thats where a see a silver lining in this new directionof efforts MS is headed towards..MS is listening, through the ears of their Evangelists..and thats a good sign. Tomorrow is a day when consumers drive "user-geerated.editor-less.useful.neccesity-driven.scalable" technologies loudly, and dont you want to make sure you are basking in the glory then Mr. Ballmer , because you listened. And because your focus had shifted from only "dunking" competitors in a dodge ball game, into an alternative parallel strategy , just as stronglt focussed on letting your best developers run free to play amidst the ecosystem of infrastructure you have created, and to be "inspired" to create, instead of JUST COMPETING to stay even. Its not just about staying even. And maybe someone rightly said too.."A good software is not when you have no features left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Remember Joel Spolsky's blog on USABILITY http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html and its cardinality moral.
Now that I have driven a few points home(at the expense of constraining my urge to nature's call, until I am done!), I feel like I could do with a short break until I get to sharing my DIGGS about an insightful blog born somewhere, or a beautiful thought born in my unpredictable mind that can change the world ;-) ...maybe who knows ?
Here are some IT facts to digest, for people who are religious abut technology fads...something like being part of the 'revolution'...or maybe savingt he world from obsolence by being part of the latest buzzwords..(and of course I m proud to b on blogspot, the best blogging site !)
Nielsen//NetRatings
TOP blogging sites in September 2007
AudienceGrowth
September 2006 September 2007 YTY
Blogger 19,751 ---- 29,596------ 50%
Six Apart TypePad 7,525------10,992 --------46%
WordPress.com 2,673 10,424 290%
tmz.com 6,000 10,293 72%
LiveJournal 3,685 4,160 13%
Xanga.com 5,528 3,008 -46%
Perezhilton.com 1,234 2,203 79%
Engadget 1,503 2,021 34%
Gizmodo 763* 1,891 148%
Thatsfit N/A 1,726
TOP search engines in September 2007
Engine-- Searches-- Growth-- YTY Share
Google ---3,994,158--- 41.3%---- 54.0%
Yahoo! ---1,443,244--- 9.3%---- 19.5%
MSN -----890,685 --- 71.5%---- 12.0%
AOL ---- 444,493 --- 24.0%--- 6.0%
Ask.com--158,969 --- 4.5% --- 2.2%
TOP social networking sites in September 2007
Site ---------------------Audience Growth(Sep 2007) YTY
Myspace.com------------58,581 --------------------------24%
Facebook ----------------18,090 ------------------------133%
Classmates Online-------13,313 ---------------------------0%
Windows Live Spaces----10,275-------------------------- 32%
AOL Hometown ----------7,685------------------------ -23%
Reunion.com -------------4,845------------------------ 3%
LinkedIn -----------------4,075------------------------ 131%
AOL People Connection--- 4,017------------------------ -34%
(ahem...my blogger.com still reigns....mmmmm)
Quoting Steve Ballmer, "MS Search capabilities are goung to dunk the other guys" !!
....goodness gracious !where are we headed mates?? Maybe I dont have the legendary expertise and experience as Stevie, but perhaps being in a desert too long can be illusioning as one's focus gets blurred in terms of the difference between a "blurred being in the zone"guy and a "fresh outsider's view of the larger picture"guy ..so as far as I perceive it...certain startegies at MS have become an ill-boding, just the oxymoron way certain other strategies have enhanced the Company's adoptability( like a base ecosystem of Windows based GUI's to market and grip the zillions of people around, and then to deploy marketing strategies and eye-candies heavily on these old cash cows...the same way as wine does...(but again Software != Wine), and of course sharing code (Windows XP code, .NET, etc))...plummeting back to strategies that look like the silence before a storm , I see Steve's strategies in pushing MS into minds and souls of people, rather too aggressive and pushy, that also in 2 risky scenarios
>> more and more number of bugs and patches that bog down the acceptability of newer MS products in a fight by users who insist old is better (the same way that Vista SP2 has been postponed, and support for XP2 has been retained)
>>2nd scenario, overly diverging the previously efforts of the teams across the world, causing a pattern I would classify as "concave lens diverging parallel rays of a light beam"...Steve you are the lens , dont you see it ?? The effect shall be the opposite of what a convex lens like other competent search engine giants(their biggest competitors) are doing, "convex lens converges parallel beam" ...the over all effect, the efforts are not being focussed, the upto-an-extent-justified-but-not-effective-in-long-run strategy of diversifying should also be folllowed with a laser focus on the divesified products, and more importantly, not just retaining the value of an array of relatively-older product arsenals, but to actually improve them aggressively...andthe golden rule to learn is to LISTEN . Listen to the loud noises blogs are making from people in startups, analysts who care to write about your Organisation, your products. Listen. And then strategize, it WILL go a long way and save much last-minute bug fixes, and patches which we are so unpopular about. And here I emphasize upon the gem of our evolution...our ability to "create". And creation happens only when we are inspired, or in more gross terms, when neccesity knocks on the door...so let your teams INNOVATE and thats where a see a silver lining in this new directionof efforts MS is headed towards..MS is listening, through the ears of their Evangelists..and thats a good sign. Tomorrow is a day when consumers drive "user-geerated.editor-less.useful.neccesity-driven.scalable" technologies loudly, and dont you want to make sure you are basking in the glory then Mr. Ballmer , because you listened. And because your focus had shifted from only "dunking" competitors in a dodge ball game, into an alternative parallel strategy , just as stronglt focussed on letting your best developers run free to play amidst the ecosystem of infrastructure you have created, and to be "inspired" to create, instead of JUST COMPETING to stay even. Its not just about staying even. And maybe someone rightly said too.."A good software is not when you have no features left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Remember Joel Spolsky's blog on USABILITY http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html and its cardinality moral.
Now that I have driven a few points home(at the expense of constraining my urge to nature's call, until I am done!), I feel like I could do with a short break until I get to sharing my DIGGS about an insightful blog born somewhere, or a beautiful thought born in my unpredictable mind that can change the world ;-) ...maybe who knows ?
I3 2007 Snaps
atlast I received few snaps from the I3 Convention, taken with other MSP's ...do check them out..and the panel looks as lively as it really sounded there :-)
Innovation in Jobs
All my beautiful readers, did you check this ....innovation in previously-unthought-of areas....check out the reviews about this Startup
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/10/asia/jobs.php
and lets get connected
http://www.babalife.com/
feels promising..wat do yu think ?
Microsoft shall be the opening blog for my first blog....
In a super condensed form, I'll try to sum up a 12-hour day 2 event INDIA IS INNOVATION conducted by Microsoft at Bangalore....
And before everything I wanna thank all the concerned ppl at MS who have contributed such immense efforts at identifying the technology enthusiaists among the academia, in Inida and around the world. and more importantly for tapping into and encouraging the potential India has, in production, development, engineering, maintenance and of course the market opportunities. On a personal front all the technology Evangelists, Academic leads and MVPs who have always mentored or guided us, have had a very empoering influence on us all, technically(knowledge view), on event management n leadership aspects, and of course the ever-important community aspect.
Back to updates, the " i3 " convention is an annual MS event aimed at the SMEs of Indian market ...which is a en enormous consumer-directed potential market .
In a way to the effect that ensuring that the entities at the bottom of the pyramid are enabled to compete more aggressively and generate and maintain 100% of talent and productivity potential that it can unleash.
Statistics :
Venue - Leela Palace, Bangalore
Invitees- Student partners ! {yaaey}
Scientists at MSR, Business professionals, enterprenuers, V-Cs, CXOs, Founders, and Venture-Capitalists of large, small and medium scale enterprises. And distinguished luminaries in fields of education, research and business.
Mash up of speakers, panelists, contributors and content :
Ravi Venkatesan-The Chairman and Corporate VP, MS(India)
Neelam Dhawan-MD, MS(India)
Dr Ashok Ganguly-Chairman, Firstsource Solutions & ABP, & Dir, Central Board, RBI
Srini Koppolu-Corp VP,MS(IDC)
Dan'l Lewin-VP,Strategic & Emerging Business Development,MS
Arun Maira-Chairman, Boston Consulting Group
Dr R.A. Mashelkar-Ex-Director Gen of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research(CSIR)
Craig Mundie-Chief Research & Strategy Officer, MS
Ravi Venkatesan-The Chairman and Corporate VP,MS(India)
Panelists
Sanjay Anandaram-Founding Partner, JumpStartUp Venture Fund
Kishore Biyani-Managing Dir., Pantaloon Retail & Group CEO, Future Group
Ashish Gupta-Managing Dir., Helion Venture Partners
Dr. Pillai-VC,I.G.N.O.U.
Srikant Rao-CEO, Affordable Business Solutions
Dr Sadagopan-Founder Dir.,I.I.I.T., Bangalore
Sakthivel-Chairman, Poppys Group
Sandeep Singhal-Managing Dir., Sequoia Capital India
A. Srikanth-Asst. VP, SKS Microfinance, India
Ramgopal Subramani-AztechSoft
Aruna Sundarajan-CEO, CSC Project
Sudhakar Varanasi-CEO, CoOptions Technology
Sudhakar Varanasi PhD-CEO- India ISV
Additional Speakers
P. Anandan-Managing Director, Microsoft Research
Jaspreet Bindra-Country Manager, MSN India
John Fernandes-Dir.,Strategic Emerging Business Development, MS
Tarun Gulati-GM, Developer & Platform Group, MS (India)
Paul MurphyDirector, Innovation, Microsoft India
Ram NarayananDirector, Unlimited Potential Group
Udai Singh PawarAssistant Researcher, Microsoft Research
In the first few hours, emphasis was laid, upon empowering the bottom of the pyramid....
"FOCUS is on “People” at bottom of pyramid ."
topics covered were
Sms server ---- leveraging the deepspread cell phone penetration in India (more than broadband that is) to innovate upon shortening the lifespan of supply end cycle, significantly.
National Programs in place
--> Startup Acceleration Program
Student Acceleration Program
Business Model Acceleration
We were informed that the hallowed halls of Harvard engages in research on the success of following Indian pioneers in Innovation :
Six Sigma - Dabbawalas of Mumbai ! 99.999999% correctness (— which means one error in six million transactions.)
http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/mar2003/msg00243.htmlhttp://www.prettislim.net/mydabbawala/News/Mumbai%20dabbawallas%20lecture%20at%20IIMs.htm
Fab India Success Story http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/04/15/stories/2007041502740100.htm
TechFarm
ITC http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/11spec.htm
Demo:
Udai Pawar
1) Split Screen (Multi Point- using Multi Point SDK {http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=A137998B-E8D6-4FFF-B805-2798D2C6E41D&displaylang=en} to collaborate two sessions at same time, while keeping optimization and resource allocation in place, allows permitted access to the other sessions applications as are allowed by permission for select applications or parts of a select application )
Target solution fields --> In Education , kiosks, cyber cafes & small businesses.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/dec06/12-14MultiPoint.mspx
you wud like to know wat ppl around da world say http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=266221
2) Multi-Console
3) Multi Keyboard
Bottomline: Sharing space {always desirable} VS. Sharing time
Dr. Pillai – VC, IGNOU says
IGNOU involves around students of who 65% – rural, of which 45% are women and around 10 students are >80 yrs old.
They have active initiatives around:
Ø CNRI(http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/cnri.html) Knowledge Centers http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/activities.html
Ø Certification of Prior Knowledge & Skills (for rural graduates, dominant in North East India).
Kudos !
Dr. Ashok Ganguly
SMEs have an innate advantage - size & agility to innovate
- less competitive domain , since target presence is national market, not international , hence able to take innovative risks .
But it also poses a problem in hesitancy for the businesses to implement innovative out-of-box proposal ideas, in terms of R.O.I risks.
In fact the hierarchy gap of a large organization that can kill the ideas in a validation vertical, is less of a challenge than in a small organization which identifies and associates any new innovation with a substantial risk of irrecoverability from a possible failure in beneficial .R.O.I..
He says "Intensity of Innovation is measured by à % of business http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/microsofts-health-vault-allows-you-to-store-and-share-your-electronic-medical-records-but-should-you
AztechSoft's Ramgopal Subramani's demo was a useful software Industrial Cluster Solution that decrytallizes SME Challenges viz.
Affordability (à solution cost, talent management, resources cost),
R.O.I. (à "long" time to provision the solution),
Vertical applications (à SMEs require small point solutions),
Distribution Channels.
Industrial Cluster Solution:
Ø Better vendor tracking , vendor planning & mgmt. of channels
Ø Used sms solutions
Ø S-a-a-S, used asp.net, ajax
{?guys wats the Reporting tool used ?........also leads me to another question burning in my head ...I smell a whiff of Business Intelligence (BI) here ...but the Indian software and services market is kinda in incubation regarding the BI ...den what will provide the INNOVATIVE solution (warmth) for an competitively priced BI service...so that the baby chicken can hatch here }
Ø The image-less ad {data mining...back to BI again...my "roti, kapda and makaan" }
Ø The “jury-less” content
The Panel which followed discussed as follows ---->
"Innovation à Keeping cost absolutely low." {of course!}
Our beloved Dr. Sadagopan (http://ss.emergic.org/) brought the spark back into all until-now-sleepy eyes ...he mentioned, "The most successful innovations happen in the most unexpected places."
He exemplated upon Bangalore...
East Bangalore: Tirupathi – RFID technology (implemented by Bartronics) to mange pilgrims queues especially in Tirupathi and other busy devotional centers on special occasions such a ‘ Brahmotsavas’ in Tirupathi, Puri, Jagannath Chariot Festival. and making sure they are water proof....for the holy dip yu know..smart chaps ! :-)
West Bangalore: Robosoft (at Udupi)...the Founder who wanted to contribute to his home town...and of course he did it ! ....and to all the VTU students who feel their college has valuable talent and wanna bridge the Industry-Academic gap...mark this Innovative Organisation on your college's program list.
And if we didnt know , the technology innovation that went into making Apple IPod wireless, emerged from a bunch of Innovators at namma J.P.Nagar ...geeee :-D
I loved his associative examples which go right back to our ricj Indian cultural context :
Siva is the Destroyer
Brahma is the Creator
Vishnu Maintains...and the penetration of temples in India around them decreases in order of Vishnu>Siva>Brahma .....likewise in the Industry-context {unlike wat we perceive maintenance as}...
“Like Sri Vishnu’s vogue, Maintenance jobs are key to largest jobs."
Srikant Rao emphasized
à "Training a million people at low cost is the innovation challenge."
...........and with regards to training , I chanced upon a friendly innovator Shyam Kedare (Dir., Softnet Interactive Pvt. Ltd) who shared his gyaan on reducing training costs...their Organization has implemented a delivery software for training in voice recorded content , scaling most Indian languages...and it sounds promising ! You heard it ....and a voice-support call center which engages partially or completely visually challenged individuals as a career option, which of course is GENERATING JOBS (!!), CUTS DOWN EMPLOYEE ATTRITION FACED BY CALL CENTERS (!!) and a VOICE BASED MULTI-LINGUAL TRAINING !! How much better can it get ?
We are looking at India now in a different light ...INNOVATION "under current constraints"...constraints are healthy , because when constraints appear, we see challenge in fulfilling neccesity ....and back to basics "Necessity is the mother of Invention."
Mr. Shaktivel mentioned the following efforts to the panel....
ATDC Training Center (in Tirupur)
Optex (for garment sector training)
And again the emphasis looped back to the “jury-less” content , the user generated content. Monopoly must crumble in the long run under a democratic community-based content.
P. Anandan (MD, MSR “Scientia”) {I personally found him an amazing person, with amazing insights, during our conversation at lunch)
Demos:
>>Surface Computing (bottomline : real world items coded as a bar code), [ of course, too cool an innovation to spoil the experience with just a writeup about it check the demos if yu can, online http://www.microsoft.com/surface/]
>>Virtual Viewpoint Video (Digital Image Processing & Vision Technology),
>>Machine Learning and HIV - training machines to identify varying patterns in gene pool, so that HIV can be combatted....Thanks Bill for the promise you made at the Ready Tour(dEC 09, 2005) in Bangalore....God bless You
>>Photosynth.
Professor shared a quick conversation at lunch on how Research for research's sake isnt healthy...research ought to be targetted at real time scenarios and for usability among people...and of course it must have a profitable commercial life cycle...he tells me to the following effect, the trend now is about people's needs being a factor among servicing initiaitves...and research can come out with a lot of innovation, if they keep commercial promis in mind , and if they focus on the realtime constraints of an eco-system.....When quizzed about the BI impact, he also put it for me saying,
BI + Social communication = one of MSR's focus
Kishore Biyani (Future Group):
They emulate an interesting emulation model, adapted from movie making.....
Lights (idea) -> Camera (drill down on idea and analyze) -> Action (prototypes) -> Retakes (quality) -> rollout -> Blockbuster
àHe informed us that an Open Source University is in progress....boy ! isnt dat news :-)
Ajit Balakrishnan (Founder and CEO - rediff.com):
“Technology in a large way is socially constructed.”
Ex: A traditional mindset recognizes a camera with something that is box like...no wonde rthe structure is stil the same...even though we can innovate on the shape and make it into a futuristic sheet of paper like device....
Morever the people in general ought to be freed from the obscurity of "jargons"...try telling a man in ancient times about building him a " car "...or try telling him you wanna build him a " horse-less carriage "...what can be a stronger association to motivate him to adopt a technology product called motor vehicle.
He emphasized on the need for a tool to automate learning, so that
shortage of trainers and teachers can be combatted, the existing teachers can untilize the time to structure out course designs & interact more qualitatively with students. This helps organizations like IIMs to scale out to cater to more students, which was the current issue of contention among the demand for IIM to scale out.
Democracy + Diversity + Demography = India
Hence
Inclusion of the entities at the bottom of the pyramid is the key note of I3.
"Innovator is one who sees what others see, but think what others do not think." nice definition I think.
Craig Mundie spoke to this effect :
"Invent" your way out of the problems, which keep growing. Current problems cannot be solved by scaling current models, Instead invent fearlessly.
“Looking not only for outsourced problems to solve, but also for people who re-engineer the computer to solve real world problems.”
He also referred to a newspaper article on which an Indian politician had campaigned that "Cricket and Bollywood are killing India."
{hey what about politics....LOL...and did we forget the feverishness of the South Indian (besides Bollywood) movie industry...the overhyped idolisation of you-know-whos...and the portayal of rowdy behavior as a solution, in the movies...which translates directly into public emulating it, to emulate the super stars...and of course to look cool (?)... hodi magaaa (?) . Well all I can say is, "It not always possible to be "cool" and do the right thing...so guys step out of the fantasy world. India is under the scnning eyes of the world, for innovation.}
He actually addressed my observation (too, coincidentally) to a wider audience...I remember the other day lecturing my friend about the Bangalore culture...and I remember telling him the direction Kannada film industry is directing young minds towards...bottomline : we need more meaningful films.....and of course the politics too...the good thing is its still not sucha widespread disease. of course,kudos to the bunch of IITans, who are contesting elections, for a intellectual country to nicubate. we all want that ! but only a few people do it.....hmmmmmmm
Mundie also spoke of the undesirable-to-progress state of mind generally among Americans and Indians, "When you aks a child in China what he aspires to become when he grows up, he replies Bill Gates without battign an eyelid. In the US , the answer would be Tiger Woods or Britney Spears. In countries like the US and India, people are obssessed with sports and entertainers. That needs to change. Only then can we grow. And IT is a critical tool to ensure that there is growth."
The point to be driven home....
Politics based on à Electorates based onà cricket & Bollywood à Dangerous to nation's progress
And he emphasized a sad fact....Technology IS celebrated, but not the Engineers......and of course the apt response to it by Dr. Mashelkar was that India did celebrate an amazing personality ...our lovable Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalaam, as our Ex-President.
Craig says, Risks & Mistakes are okay. But as Bill said, “Don’t repeat the same mistake twice.”
Dr. R.A. Mashelkar
“If you focus your energies, you can burn anything in this world.”
Panel:
CNBC “Innovation Conversation”
CNBC Discussion Interviewer
Sandeep Singhal (MD, Seqouia)
Dr. Sudhakar
Craig Mundie
Ravi Venkateshan
Craig is focusing on expertise in Parallel computing. You heard it !
Points :
Dr. Sudhakar’s Organization works with the bottom of the pyramid at the grass root level.
It is difficult to mix products and projects together. That has been the challenge always for an Organization.
Craig on INVENTION: 3 Types à
1) Sustaining invention
2) Inducing disrupt ness. Ex: current innovations in medicine.
3) Responsiveness to inventive ideas, subject to opportunity costs.
“psychic and financial analysis” : psychic – by recognition, financial – give stock options, bonus.
Make sure the risks that the company takes on your part, also succeeds and yields returns. And don’t make the same mistake twice.
There should be a social responsibility, or rather a visibility from the peers, so that people/Company who receive knowledge/clients also repay back to the country. Ex: Village panchayats etc.
Community-based system is more effective at reducing default-rates in an Organization.
My question:
What is the greatest challenge?
The hierarchy gap in a big organization’s verticals that may kill the ideas in a validation process? OR The risk factor of a small Organization which is accepting an inventive idea?
How to solve it?
Ans: Ravi: Second option. It’s a planted question.
Craig: Get people who take risks. Don’t treat people employees like military workers. VS. Venture based Companies…hence the Venture based Companies are better-of with taking risks.
à MS Innovation Center coming up in Pune, India.
Ending Note
à Market is the mother of Invention.
We left after our dinner and some more interaction....and of course our Imagine Cup Finalists from Gujrat shared good insights....and if the tech Evangelists are listening...their team didnt have a mentor....and that was a 3stepsforward- 2stepsbehind problem...also there were a couple of minute but irrecognizable differences between the focus on INDIAN FINALS and the WORLD WIDE FINALS.....(sorry cant go into details now).
On a different note, do check out babajob.com
NOW , in terms of innovation, if people out there are listening, reading and getting ideas, get back to me....I have some leads on the right places to showcase it...infact even illiteracy wouldnt be a constraint, because there are platforms available where funding and recognition of the projects after showcasing, is not a problem at all....The people we have interacted with, are the decisionmakers, and they are looking more strongly now at INCLUSIVE GROWTH...means INVOLVING THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID.
There is an exciting annual initiative happening at ITM Universe Campus (Gwalior) with Mr. Daulat Singh Chauhan
...if you have an innovative idea or know anyone who does, get back to me, and lets help you and them strengthen the Indian backbone.
Thanks a zillion to Paul(Dir. of Innovation, MS) who helped orchestrate such an important discussion, its picking up momentum, and thanks to Alok.....but of course goes without saying, AJAY, REZA and KEVIN are the three Magi at MICROSOFT .
we represented the Company as Student Partners, and as memebers of User Communities (this is Bangalore....http://groups.msn.com/bdotnetstudent) around Microsoft technologies...and if you wanna know wats the what-of-what about it, (the thing which helped me survive thru the monotonity and rote-learning of college...) then write back to me personally...would be more than glad to fill you in and get you involved. We are only on the tip of the iceberg until then.
http://student-partners.com/
In a super condensed form, I'll try to sum up a 12-hour day 2 event INDIA IS INNOVATION conducted by Microsoft at Bangalore....
And before everything I wanna thank all the concerned ppl at MS who have contributed such immense efforts at identifying the technology enthusiaists among the academia, in Inida and around the world. and more importantly for tapping into and encouraging the potential India has, in production, development, engineering, maintenance and of course the market opportunities. On a personal front all the technology Evangelists, Academic leads and MVPs who have always mentored or guided us, have had a very empoering influence on us all, technically(knowledge view), on event management n leadership aspects, and of course the ever-important community aspect.
Back to updates, the " i3 " convention is an annual MS event aimed at the SMEs of Indian market ...which is a en enormous consumer-directed potential market .
In a way to the effect that ensuring that the entities at the bottom of the pyramid are enabled to compete more aggressively and generate and maintain 100% of talent and productivity potential that it can unleash.
Statistics :
Venue - Leela Palace, Bangalore
Invitees- Student partners ! {yaaey}
Scientists at MSR, Business professionals, enterprenuers, V-Cs, CXOs, Founders, and Venture-Capitalists of large, small and medium scale enterprises. And distinguished luminaries in fields of education, research and business.
Mash up of speakers, panelists, contributors and content :
Ravi Venkatesan-The Chairman and Corporate VP, MS(India)
Neelam Dhawan-MD, MS(India)
Dr Ashok Ganguly-Chairman, Firstsource Solutions & ABP, & Dir, Central Board, RBI
Srini Koppolu-Corp VP,MS(IDC)
Dan'l Lewin-VP,Strategic & Emerging Business Development,MS
Arun Maira-Chairman, Boston Consulting Group
Dr R.A. Mashelkar-Ex-Director Gen of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research(CSIR)
Craig Mundie-Chief Research & Strategy Officer, MS
Ravi Venkatesan-The Chairman and Corporate VP,MS(India)
Panelists
Sanjay Anandaram-Founding Partner, JumpStartUp Venture Fund
Kishore Biyani-Managing Dir., Pantaloon Retail & Group CEO, Future Group
Ashish Gupta-Managing Dir., Helion Venture Partners
Dr. Pillai-VC,I.G.N.O.U.
Srikant Rao-CEO, Affordable Business Solutions
Dr Sadagopan-Founder Dir.,I.I.I.T., Bangalore
Sakthivel-Chairman, Poppys Group
Sandeep Singhal-Managing Dir., Sequoia Capital India
A. Srikanth-Asst. VP, SKS Microfinance, India
Ramgopal Subramani-AztechSoft
Aruna Sundarajan-CEO, CSC Project
Sudhakar Varanasi-CEO, CoOptions Technology
Sudhakar Varanasi PhD-CEO- India ISV
Additional Speakers
P. Anandan-Managing Director, Microsoft Research
Jaspreet Bindra-Country Manager, MSN India
John Fernandes-Dir.,Strategic Emerging Business Development, MS
Tarun Gulati-GM, Developer & Platform Group, MS (India)
Paul MurphyDirector, Innovation, Microsoft India
Ram NarayananDirector, Unlimited Potential Group
Udai Singh PawarAssistant Researcher, Microsoft Research
In the first few hours, emphasis was laid, upon empowering the bottom of the pyramid....
"FOCUS is on “People” at bottom of pyramid ."
topics covered were
Sms server ---- leveraging the deepspread cell phone penetration in India (more than broadband that is) to innovate upon shortening the lifespan of supply end cycle, significantly.
National Programs in place
--> Startup Acceleration Program
Student Acceleration Program
Business Model Acceleration
We were informed that the hallowed halls of Harvard engages in research on the success of following Indian pioneers in Innovation :
Six Sigma - Dabbawalas of Mumbai ! 99.999999% correctness (— which means one error in six million transactions.)
http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/mar2003/msg00243.htmlhttp://www.prettislim.net/mydabbawala/News/Mumbai%20dabbawallas%20lecture%20at%20IIMs.htm
Fab India Success Story http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/04/15/stories/2007041502740100.htm
TechFarm
ITC http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/11spec.htm
Demo:
Udai Pawar
1) Split Screen (Multi Point- using Multi Point SDK {http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=A137998B-E8D6-4FFF-B805-2798D2C6E41D&displaylang=en} to collaborate two sessions at same time, while keeping optimization and resource allocation in place, allows permitted access to the other sessions applications as are allowed by permission for select applications or parts of a select application )
Target solution fields --> In Education , kiosks, cyber cafes & small businesses.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/dec06/12-14MultiPoint.mspx
you wud like to know wat ppl around da world say http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=266221
2) Multi-Console
3) Multi Keyboard
Bottomline: Sharing space {always desirable} VS. Sharing time
Dr. Pillai – VC, IGNOU says
IGNOU involves around students of who 65% – rural, of which 45% are women and around 10 students are >80 yrs old.
They have active initiatives around:
Ø CNRI(http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/cnri.html) Knowledge Centers http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/activities.html
Ø Certification of Prior Knowledge & Skills (for rural graduates, dominant in North East India).
Kudos !
Dr. Ashok Ganguly
SMEs have an innate advantage - size & agility to innovate
- less competitive domain , since target presence is national market, not international , hence able to take innovative risks .
But it also poses a problem in hesitancy for the businesses to implement innovative out-of-box proposal ideas, in terms of R.O.I risks.
In fact the hierarchy gap of a large organization that can kill the ideas in a validation vertical, is less of a challenge than in a small organization which identifies and associates any new innovation with a substantial risk of irrecoverability from a possible failure in beneficial .R.O.I..
He says "Intensity of Innovation is measured by à % of business http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/microsofts-health-vault-allows-you-to-store-and-share-your-electronic-medical-records-but-should-you
AztechSoft's Ramgopal Subramani's demo was a useful software Industrial Cluster Solution that decrytallizes SME Challenges viz.
Affordability (à solution cost, talent management, resources cost),
R.O.I. (à "long" time to provision the solution),
Vertical applications (à SMEs require small point solutions),
Distribution Channels.
Industrial Cluster Solution:
Ø Better vendor tracking , vendor planning & mgmt. of channels
Ø Used sms solutions
Ø S-a-a-S, used asp.net, ajax
{?guys wats the Reporting tool used ?........also leads me to another question burning in my head ...I smell a whiff of Business Intelligence (BI) here ...but the Indian software and services market is kinda in incubation regarding the BI ...den what will provide the INNOVATIVE solution (warmth) for an competitively priced BI service...so that the baby chicken can hatch here }
Ø The image-less ad {data mining...back to BI again...my "roti, kapda and makaan" }
Ø The “jury-less” content
The Panel which followed discussed as follows ---->
"Innovation à Keeping cost absolutely low." {of course!}
Our beloved Dr. Sadagopan (http://ss.emergic.org/) brought the spark back into all until-now-sleepy eyes ...he mentioned, "The most successful innovations happen in the most unexpected places."
He exemplated upon Bangalore...
East Bangalore: Tirupathi – RFID technology (implemented by Bartronics) to mange pilgrims queues especially in Tirupathi and other busy devotional centers on special occasions such a ‘ Brahmotsavas’ in Tirupathi, Puri, Jagannath Chariot Festival. and making sure they are water proof....for the holy dip yu know..smart chaps ! :-)
West Bangalore: Robosoft (at Udupi)...the Founder who wanted to contribute to his home town...and of course he did it ! ....and to all the VTU students who feel their college has valuable talent and wanna bridge the Industry-Academic gap...mark this Innovative Organisation on your college's program list.
And if we didnt know , the technology innovation that went into making Apple IPod wireless, emerged from a bunch of Innovators at namma J.P.Nagar ...geeee :-D
I loved his associative examples which go right back to our ricj Indian cultural context :
Siva is the Destroyer
Brahma is the Creator
Vishnu Maintains...and the penetration of temples in India around them decreases in order of Vishnu>Siva>Brahma .....likewise in the Industry-context {unlike wat we perceive maintenance as}...
“Like Sri Vishnu’s vogue, Maintenance jobs are key to largest jobs."
Srikant Rao emphasized
à "Training a million people at low cost is the innovation challenge."
...........and with regards to training , I chanced upon a friendly innovator Shyam Kedare (Dir., Softnet Interactive Pvt. Ltd) who shared his gyaan on reducing training costs...their Organization has implemented a delivery software for training in voice recorded content , scaling most Indian languages...and it sounds promising ! You heard it ....and a voice-support call center which engages partially or completely visually challenged individuals as a career option, which of course is GENERATING JOBS (!!), CUTS DOWN EMPLOYEE ATTRITION FACED BY CALL CENTERS (!!) and a VOICE BASED MULTI-LINGUAL TRAINING !! How much better can it get ?
We are looking at India now in a different light ...INNOVATION "under current constraints"...constraints are healthy , because when constraints appear, we see challenge in fulfilling neccesity ....and back to basics "Necessity is the mother of Invention."
Mr. Shaktivel mentioned the following efforts to the panel....
ATDC Training Center (in Tirupur)
Optex (for garment sector training)
And again the emphasis looped back to the “jury-less” content , the user generated content. Monopoly must crumble in the long run under a democratic community-based content.
P. Anandan (MD, MSR “Scientia”) {I personally found him an amazing person, with amazing insights, during our conversation at lunch)
Demos:
>>Surface Computing (bottomline : real world items coded as a bar code), [ of course, too cool an innovation to spoil the experience with just a writeup about it check the demos if yu can, online http://www.microsoft.com/surface/]
>>Virtual Viewpoint Video (Digital Image Processing & Vision Technology),
>>Machine Learning and HIV - training machines to identify varying patterns in gene pool, so that HIV can be combatted....Thanks Bill for the promise you made at the Ready Tour(dEC 09, 2005) in Bangalore....God bless You
>>Photosynth.
Professor shared a quick conversation at lunch on how Research for research's sake isnt healthy...research ought to be targetted at real time scenarios and for usability among people...and of course it must have a profitable commercial life cycle...he tells me to the following effect, the trend now is about people's needs being a factor among servicing initiaitves...and research can come out with a lot of innovation, if they keep commercial promis in mind , and if they focus on the realtime constraints of an eco-system.....When quizzed about the BI impact, he also put it for me saying,
BI + Social communication = one of MSR's focus
Kishore Biyani (Future Group):
They emulate an interesting emulation model, adapted from movie making.....
Lights (idea) -> Camera (drill down on idea and analyze) -> Action (prototypes) -> Retakes (quality) -> rollout -> Blockbuster
àHe informed us that an Open Source University is in progress....boy ! isnt dat news :-)
Ajit Balakrishnan (Founder and CEO - rediff.com):
“Technology in a large way is socially constructed.”
Ex: A traditional mindset recognizes a camera with something that is box like...no wonde rthe structure is stil the same...even though we can innovate on the shape and make it into a futuristic sheet of paper like device....
Morever the people in general ought to be freed from the obscurity of "jargons"...try telling a man in ancient times about building him a " car "...or try telling him you wanna build him a " horse-less carriage "...what can be a stronger association to motivate him to adopt a technology product called motor vehicle.
He emphasized on the need for a tool to automate learning, so that
shortage of trainers and teachers can be combatted, the existing teachers can untilize the time to structure out course designs & interact more qualitatively with students. This helps organizations like IIMs to scale out to cater to more students, which was the current issue of contention among the demand for IIM to scale out.
Democracy + Diversity + Demography = India
Hence
Inclusion of the entities at the bottom of the pyramid is the key note of I3.
"Innovator is one who sees what others see, but think what others do not think." nice definition I think.
Craig Mundie spoke to this effect :
"Invent" your way out of the problems, which keep growing. Current problems cannot be solved by scaling current models, Instead invent fearlessly.
“Looking not only for outsourced problems to solve, but also for people who re-engineer the computer to solve real world problems.”
He also referred to a newspaper article on which an Indian politician had campaigned that "Cricket and Bollywood are killing India."
{hey what about politics....LOL...and did we forget the feverishness of the South Indian (besides Bollywood) movie industry...the overhyped idolisation of you-know-whos...and the portayal of rowdy behavior as a solution, in the movies...which translates directly into public emulating it, to emulate the super stars...and of course to look cool (?)... hodi magaaa (?) . Well all I can say is, "It not always possible to be "cool" and do the right thing...so guys step out of the fantasy world. India is under the scnning eyes of the world, for innovation.}
He actually addressed my observation (too, coincidentally) to a wider audience...I remember the other day lecturing my friend about the Bangalore culture...and I remember telling him the direction Kannada film industry is directing young minds towards...bottomline : we need more meaningful films.....and of course the politics too...the good thing is its still not sucha widespread disease. of course,kudos to the bunch of IITans, who are contesting elections, for a intellectual country to nicubate. we all want that ! but only a few people do it.....hmmmmmmm
Mundie also spoke of the undesirable-to-progress state of mind generally among Americans and Indians, "When you aks a child in China what he aspires to become when he grows up, he replies Bill Gates without battign an eyelid. In the US , the answer would be Tiger Woods or Britney Spears. In countries like the US and India, people are obssessed with sports and entertainers. That needs to change. Only then can we grow. And IT is a critical tool to ensure that there is growth."
The point to be driven home....
Politics based on à Electorates based onà cricket & Bollywood à Dangerous to nation's progress
And he emphasized a sad fact....Technology IS celebrated, but not the Engineers......and of course the apt response to it by Dr. Mashelkar was that India did celebrate an amazing personality ...our lovable Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalaam, as our Ex-President.
Craig says, Risks & Mistakes are okay. But as Bill said, “Don’t repeat the same mistake twice.”
Dr. R.A. Mashelkar
“If you focus your energies, you can burn anything in this world.”
Panel:
CNBC “Innovation Conversation”
CNBC Discussion Interviewer
Sandeep Singhal (MD, Seqouia)
Dr. Sudhakar
Craig Mundie
Ravi Venkateshan
Craig is focusing on expertise in Parallel computing. You heard it !
Points :
Dr. Sudhakar’s Organization works with the bottom of the pyramid at the grass root level.
It is difficult to mix products and projects together. That has been the challenge always for an Organization.
Craig on INVENTION: 3 Types à
1) Sustaining invention
2) Inducing disrupt ness. Ex: current innovations in medicine.
3) Responsiveness to inventive ideas, subject to opportunity costs.
“psychic and financial analysis” : psychic – by recognition, financial – give stock options, bonus.
Make sure the risks that the company takes on your part, also succeeds and yields returns. And don’t make the same mistake twice.
There should be a social responsibility, or rather a visibility from the peers, so that people/Company who receive knowledge/clients also repay back to the country. Ex: Village panchayats etc.
Community-based system is more effective at reducing default-rates in an Organization.
My question:
What is the greatest challenge?
The hierarchy gap in a big organization’s verticals that may kill the ideas in a validation process? OR The risk factor of a small Organization which is accepting an inventive idea?
How to solve it?
Ans: Ravi: Second option. It’s a planted question.
Craig: Get people who take risks. Don’t treat people employees like military workers. VS. Venture based Companies…hence the Venture based Companies are better-of with taking risks.
à MS Innovation Center coming up in Pune, India.
Ending Note
à Market is the mother of Invention.
We left after our dinner and some more interaction....and of course our Imagine Cup Finalists from Gujrat shared good insights....and if the tech Evangelists are listening...their team didnt have a mentor....and that was a 3stepsforward- 2stepsbehind problem...also there were a couple of minute but irrecognizable differences between the focus on INDIAN FINALS and the WORLD WIDE FINALS.....(sorry cant go into details now).
On a different note, do check out babajob.com
NOW , in terms of innovation, if people out there are listening, reading and getting ideas, get back to me....I have some leads on the right places to showcase it...infact even illiteracy wouldnt be a constraint, because there are platforms available where funding and recognition of the projects after showcasing, is not a problem at all....The people we have interacted with, are the decisionmakers, and they are looking more strongly now at INCLUSIVE GROWTH...means INVOLVING THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID.
There is an exciting annual initiative happening at ITM Universe Campus (Gwalior) with Mr. Daulat Singh Chauhan
...if you have an innovative idea or know anyone who does, get back to me, and lets help you and them strengthen the Indian backbone.
Thanks a zillion to Paul(Dir. of Innovation, MS) who helped orchestrate such an important discussion, its picking up momentum, and thanks to Alok.....but of course goes without saying, AJAY, REZA and KEVIN are the three Magi at MICROSOFT .
we represented the Company as Student Partners, and as memebers of User Communities (this is Bangalore....http://groups.msn.com/bdotnetstudent) around Microsoft technologies...and if you wanna know wats the what-of-what about it, (the thing which helped me survive thru the monotonity and rote-learning of college...) then write back to me personally...would be more than glad to fill you in and get you involved. We are only on the tip of the iceberg until then.
http://student-partners.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
