Common Sense

Excellence & Quality

2010-08-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

I read the following small story, which impressed me a lot.

A person once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?"

"No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage."

The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked.

"There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work and without looking up.

"Where are you going to install the idol?" asked the gentleman The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked.

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."

The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not. "Excellence" is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency.. .

Working On.....

2009-12-02T01:49:00.000-08:00

1) Collecting information to write about information:

Information Sourcing
Information Scouting
Information Processing

2) On Experience and Failures

Stay tuned....

An analogy between the pen and the mobile phone

2009-11-19T02:25:00.000-08:00

Invention of writing pen set the stage for whole lot of creativity and cool design around the pen top to bottom - say it's a cap, tank, nib, body color, etc.,. People were also adopted & encouraged the creativity around pen. It's simply because, the base product PEN is so modular in design, and it allowed all sort of creative variations and innovation around every part of it. Moreover, it becomes a basic commodity for day to day living so every one appreciated the creativity to the fullest extent. This is for an analog world. Today we are living in a digital world, what is it out there today, which is as close and modular of PEN?

You got it, it’s Mobile Phone! - "Pen for an analog world! Mobile for digital world!"

Watch the video here http://bit.ly/15S8h7

Top 5 reasons for scrappy organization

2009-11-18T23:18:00.000-08:00

Fortunately or (Unfortunately) I have been working for start-up since started my career. Fortunately, (this time no unfortunate) I have been associated with the start-ups from the beginning in most of the companies except the current and the last one. It doesn’t matter whether I was early or late, following are the top 5 reasons for scrappy organizations from my personal perspective, which ultimately leads the organization to fail miserably if it doesn’t act fast and take corrective measures.

Fragmented; no team work

Unnecessary spending; It could be expense towards travels from engineer to executives, Not spending on the required stuffs.

Not adopting or developing the culture of experiments. When you do experiments you have chances of failing fast and change the course. f not, it ended up failing late.

Think and Act inwardly; Having a notion of what you are doing is right and not checking the pulse of the market trend & target customer

Not creating leaders to take charge and responsibilities. If an org. creates only followers, it is clear that it is digging is its own grave.

Note: Please drop your additional points for scrappy organization in the blog comments section so that all readers have chance to read your points as well.

Take an advantage of wireless and mobile technologies to create a “Made in India” brand

2009-11-18T05:01:00.000-08:00

In the late 70’s/early 80’s kids in the U.S were exposed to the PC, which has given them a good handle on computers and software leads them to innovate new stuffs and to create a great business around it. In fact, every decade there was a new innovation from OS to Database to Internet Applications. Thanks to Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, Lucent, (to name a few) to create a whole new digital world, which helped to expand the human imagination such as, Internet/World Wide Web to create a great companies and business like Yahoo!, and Google.

Now, I think, India has a similar advantage what the U.S and other western countries had in the 80’s. Thanks to the wireless and mobile technologies. Mobile phone adoption rate is growing fast in India YoY, most importantly kids are having access to the mobile phones. I feel this as a change factor from the entrepreneurial perspective. When kids are gaining access and expose to this tiny little device, it enables them to innovate and create value addition to the business and market. Kids are the one, who are not biased to any external forces (from business perspectives), which gives them an additional advantage to innovate new stuffs, similar to Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google (again to name a few).

Let us encourage our new innovators, motivate and mentor them in a right direction to create and build long lasting enterprises from India.

Paper Vs. Digital - Which is Greener?

2009-11-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

I have attended the Nasscom Product Conclave Conference 2009 in Bangalore on Oct 27 and 28^th. At the registration counter I have been given a nice back-pack with lot of brochures, pamphlets, leaflets, and booklets, full of paper-print media.

Since, the conference was packed with lot of workshops, keynotes and networking sessions, I didn’t find time to pull the stuff out from my bag and it was almost weighing 500+ grams.

After couple of days, I pulled the stuff out and I was shocked, why so much of paper printed materials, why can’t it be on digital media pushing the information to the mobile phones. Actually, I thought, paper media is not greener and sustainable (cutting trees) and digital media is greener.

“There is no question that print media could do a better job of managing the sustainability of its supply chains and waste streams, but it’s a misguided notion to assume that digital media is categorically greener. Computers, eReaders, and cell phones don’t grow on trees and their spiraling requirement for energy is unsustainable.”

But, this blog post - Which is Greener: Paper or Digital? The Answer May Surprise You gives a different view. As an entrepreneur, please be aware when pitching a product /solution for the cause of Greener.

Off topic discussion - Marriage Cause & Effect

2009-11-03T17:55:00.000-08:00

This is an off topic from the core idea behind this blog. Anyways, it has some insight, so I thought of posting it.

Yesterday we went out for a team lunch for winning a skit performance by the team. Towards the end of the lunch, an interesting but debatable topic popped-up about the marriage - "the cause & effect".

So the cause & effect equation:

1) Emotional dependency is the cause; marriage is an effect
2) Improve and Add Value to the society is the cause; marriage is an effect

I think, it is a biased decision based on the opinion of majority. It is driven by the social pressure at a high level and distilled through family pressure, near pressure, dear pressure, this pressure, that pressure and finally to the personal level. When it gets to the personal level, everyone goes based on the majority judgment and got married. After this action, they start learning and draw their own theory of cause and effect.

The Asch Conformity Experiments – a psychological analysis is appropriate here to prove this point - opinions and decisions are made on the majority judgment, even if it is wrong!

P.S: The argument is based only on Indian marriage context.

Guideline to raise capital from angel investors

2009-11-03T04:09:00.000-08:00

The new york times list a set of guideline to raise capital from angel investors. The New Rules of Angel Investing a must read to all brave new entreprenuers.

The imporatant stuff is, entreprenuers should be on their own first and create a tangible value before look for any fund.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2009-09-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005

Imprtant Take Away for young brave entreprenuers

Don't waste your time in living someone else's life. Most importantly have courage to follow your own heart and intution. Everything else is secondary

A VC Live interaction with Entreprenuers

2008-08-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Good resource for entrprenuers who are looking for investment from a VC or angel. Certainly the below reference dialogue provide a very deep insight information about creating a sustainable business in the new webaconomy (Web + Economy) world! click here

Inspiring talk - The Art of Innovation

2008-02-18T02:14:00.000-08:00

I have listen pretty much the same speech @ TiE conference but this one is better due to the Zentation probably. Anyways, this is one of the inspiring speech for Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs, Innovators, Marketers, Revolutionaries in general,

Who ever want to Change the World!

Key Inputs for Innovators

Make Meaning - Whatever you are doing
Revolution not Evolution - Jumping Curves
"DICE" - Deep, Intelligent, Complete, and Elegant
Don't worry, be crappy
Let a hundred flowers blossom

Guy Kawasaki @ 2007 Event Market Conference

Art of Hiring! - Hiring Highly Infected People

2008-02-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

Lots of new stuffs are happening in the HR arena from the management perspective and there are different hiring policies in many different companies, successful one made those policies into a cult. Please check out Guy Kawasaki's gyan, which is more pragmatic in real world. No to say, it is not a management (MBA) talk!

Happy New Year 2008!

2008-01-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!

Social Networking – What Next?

2007-12-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

Actually I was quite thrilled and excited when I heard about the MySpace and Facebook kind of social networking applications/wesites. But now, it is kind of worrying that the concepts of social networking will also fallback to the same concept of selling dog food online! More and more social networking websites and applications are developed without any sound business model and consumer model will certainly collapse the entire business/industry once again as same as Web 1.0

Lately there are more number of social networking apps/websites are floated to inherit the existing consumer base by linking with their apps with – Facebook, Myspace, etc., etc., The applications developed are not sound enough to attract the consumer and does not provide any value add to the online advertisers, the de-facto business model. I think it is just a linear extrapolation of the existing stuff.

Social networking is for connecting people at various levels. Generally, people come to the site or associate with the site to look for people rather than looking for buying stuff. If the consumer is not looking for buying stuff what is the value provided to the online advertisements (Business Model). If it does not provide any value how it will sustain and grow? It cannot be compared with Television, where consumers are not looking for people connections. It is an entertainment device and it PULL people to watch the ads whereas in the online it is a PUSH model, which does not guarantee that the consumer ever click your advertisement, hence no value to the advertisers.

Check this article on online advertisement - Who clicks on ads? And what might this means?

Core Incompetence: The flip side of your signature strength

2007-12-18T09:31:00.001-08:00

Wonderful Insight about one owns core strengths leading to his core Incompetence if he is not aware of the transition. It is very true that this is not only applies to an individual but also to an organization, society, nation by which the signature strengths transitioned by itself into a core incompetence.

My Examples:

Company
Excite founders refuses Vinodh Khosla's advise to acquire Google. Vinodh Khosla even made an attempt to convince Google's founders to sell it to Excite and join them. Excite folks believed that they can do much more than what Google had already. Excite as an entity (signature strength) and install-base made them arrogance, it transformed to their core incompetence and finally lead them to failure.

Nation
America's war on Iraq. I don't need to elaborate more on this.

Core Incompetence: The flip side of your signature strength

Ten minutes before the end of the extra time in the 2006 soccer world cup, the French captain Zidane almost broke the Italian player Materazzi’s heart, quite literally, with a head butt on his chest. This is not the first time Zidane has misdirected his energy. He stamped on Saudi Arabia captain Fuad Amin in 1998 world cup and was dismissed from the game. In 2000, he head butted Jochen Kientz in the 27th minute. Kientz suffered a concussion and a fractured cheekbone and Zidane received a five-match ban. Zinedine Zidane has always been known for his intensity and the downside of this strength became most evident in the world cup finals. It is probable that France lost to Italy because they were without their captain and one of the greatest players of the game.
As an executive coach interested in exploring what drives people to successes and failures, I have worked with hundreds of ambitious people including business executives, sports legends and Nobel laureates. One key discovery I made repeatedly over the last fifteen years is that there is a common driver to the successes and failures of the people I studied. I call this driver, ‘the signature strength’ and its downside, ‘Core Incompetence’.

A signature strength forms in a person when a certain competence matures in a person due to his nature and/or nurture. I found that the initial successes produced by the signature strength make people mistake a particular manifestation of the strength for the strength itself. They then convert that manifestation as a success formula and apply it to all of their goals. When this behavior continues indiscriminately, it spills into all roles and situations resulting in Core Incompetence. In Zidane’s case, perhaps ‘intensity’ is his signature strength and one manifestation of it is an aggressive behavior – when applied to the game, it helps him to score brilliant goals; when blindly applied on an opponent’s chest, it becomes his Core Incompetence.

So, Core Incompetence is “A blind attachment to and reliance on a particular manifestation of ones signature strength that has brought successes in the past but now applied blindly everywhere else.”

Zidane is not alone in displaying Core Incompetence. Steve Jobs’s signature strength is passion. One manifestation of it is creation of products with simplicity, elegance and perfection. It resulted in macs, powerbooks and ipods that won the hearts Apple customers. It also made him refuse to include a cooling fan in Mac II and network capability in later Macs (he is reported to have thrown a floppy disc at the person who suggested adding network capability and said, “take it, that is your network”). Apple’s low market share and over-reliance on innovation to survive could be attributed to a blind compulsion towards simplicity, elegance and perfection.

For Craig Barrett, persistence is his signature strength that turned into blind stubbornness when he stuck to the Itanium chip against his own engineers. It cost Intel billions of dollars and earned the name Itanic.

In the case of San Jose mayor, Ron Gonzales, Phil Yost, an editor of San Jose Mercury News summarizes nicely in a headline in June, 2006: Strengths trip up mayor. Analysis: Self Assurance and forceful nature feed unwillingness to take wide-ranging advice.

Everybody has Core Incompetence. If you think you don’t – slow down – and reflect on what your parents or elementary school teachers repeatedly warned you to be watchful about. See whether you still have the same issue, the same ‘hubris’ or ‘Achilles heel’ even now. When your confidence becomes over confidence or sometimes arrogance, you do things that you have done in the past and gotten away assuming that the context has not changed. Everybody gets caught sooner or later. It is just a matter of time: Core Incompetence is a ticking behavioral bomb waiting to explode on your face.

The presence of Core Incompetence is not the end of your life. Once you become aware of it and pay attention to it, you can manage your life around it and become successful. One example I can think of is Lance Armstrong.

Growing up in a modest family, determination became his great weapon to rise himself to heights he could not afford. From local bike races leading up stage 18 of Tour de France in 1995, what propelled him were sheer will power and unimaginable hard work (manifestation of determination). Then he got cancer in 1996. Besides teaching him many valuable lessons about the preciousness of life and the nature of human suffering, he says it also provided him the perspective to discover other manifestations of his strength that he never used before in biking: meticulously improving his strategy and technique. Before cancer, he would never allow a competitor to win one of the stages in the race at the cost of draining himself even if it wouldn’t affect his lead. After cancer, he allowed it. He even gave up on wanting to participate and win every bike race and concentrated single-mindedly on the Tour De France (another manifestation of determination). By becoming aware of his Core Incompetence and reinventing his strength in other forms Lance Armstrong was able to win Tour de France seven consecutive years from 1999 to 2005.

Finally, we cannot pay attention to our Core Incompetence even if we become aware of it if we do not have a compelling vision or a larger purpose. Because, without a compelling aspiration, it becomes painful to look at our own Core Incompetence. Only in the context of a larger commitment, can our breakdowns be used to create breakthroughs.

Summarizing, Core Incompetence comes out of our signature strength and not from already identified incompetencies. Our biggest failures come from our biggest strengths and our biggest lessons and learning potentially come from our biggest failures.

The author is a CEO advisor and coach based in California. www.prasadkaipa.com.
Source: Managementnext

Android Architecture Lecture

2007-12-08T09:42:00.001-08:00

More news about Android

2007-12-08T08:21:00.001-08:00

Android - Open Mobile Software Platform

2007-12-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Brave New World!

2007-07-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

My first blog on the Internet - Brave New World!

It is my pleasure to share my views to the World, which is moving faster than the Light.....

Let me start sharing my views from next blog posting. Appreciate your comments and views to further enhance the thoughts.

-ganges.....