Pervade - the power to influence

2006-08-01T10:19:00.000+05:30

IITM - Batch of 95, Alumni Reunion

2005-11-09T02:48:00.000+05:30

Yeah! We guys (and gals) are meeting up after 10 long years of sojourn in our own lives. This meeting is the Bay Area edition of the Alumni Reunion, the Chennai / Bangalore edition is still to come :-)Radish, Kavi, Trauma are the forebearers of the efforts and my visit to the Bay Area is serendipity in disguise so that I could join all the fun.Radish has created a Wiki here

Smoothies - Berry Cream smoothie

2005-04-18T09:18:00.000+05:30

I've been bitten by the 'Smoothies' bug. Yesterday I made this berry cream smoothie. Here's the recipe: Ingredients: 10 almonds, 20 cranberries, half a glass of milk, 2 scoops of vanilla icecream, a glass of watermelon juice. Serves 2 Preparation Method: In a blender, grind the almonds with a little water, to a fine paste. Then add the cranberries and blend both

Bangalore - Silicon Valley of India, what else?

2005-01-19T19:41:00.000+05:30

This city is my latest habitat. I moved here since the advent of this year and have also taken up a new job here. Some of the thoughts on this erstwhile beautiful city: Very congested - on the road to be one (literally & figuratively) Too many opportunities - good for the young generation (I feel younger ;-)) Almost reckless development - may end up getting the city

Supply overdose - what next?

2004-12-31T14:41:00.000+05:30

My IIT batchmate, Sriram (a.k.a. SKD), from an NGO called Akanksha, called me up last night to let me know that he's organizing some supplies for rehabilitation for the Tsunami-affected people of coastal south india. He also mentioned that he's networking with other friends to see if all efforts can be aggregated so that relief and rehabilitation has a larger reach. At such

Law as intelligence!

2004-12-21T17:06:00.000+05:30

The arrest of Avinash Bajaj, CEO of Baazee.com has prompted lots of action from the fledgling internet industry captains in India. A gist of the incident and post-facto actions in CXO Today. Here are some questions, pertinent from my view: 1. How does a group of law-makers argue for a non-standard way of evidence from an industry? For example, the court is asking for some

Tourism and safety!

2004-12-15T15:05:00.000+05:30

The last episode of Powerr Trip, the program in Sahara One where Shobha De has a rendezvous with corporate bigwigs and other celebrities, was an interesting one. The person in question was Ashwini Thakkar, the CEO of Thomas Cook India. Shobha De's question was, 'How do you improve Tourism in India?' to which the profound but simple answer Ash had was 'Tourism is about

Link between Zen and Capitalism!

2004-12-10T19:51:00.000+05:30

Prathamesh asked me 'What's the connection between Zen and Capitalism'. He's got a nice blog at Zenkatha. Here's my view on Zen and Capitalism: Zen says 'The best way to focus on your goal and achieve it, is by not focusing on it all the time'. This means, by looking at the details, the nitty-gritties, the brass tacks, the ropes, what have you, you'll slowly and surely

Overture advertising on Google!

2004-12-10T19:47:00.000+05:30

Found an interesting set of Ads by Goooooogle on SearchEngine Journal. There were 4 Text Ads that were from Overture advertising 'Get 50% off here' et al! What do you call this?

Good ideas - Dump or Recycle?

2004-12-08T13:00:00.000+05:30

I blogged about the usefulness of having segregated garbage and how Chennai Corporation is going to collect only segregated garbage from Dec 4th. Apparently, that's only in some areas where the Onyx Corporation [Onyx is the garbage management arm of the French multinational Vivendi Environment which has interests in water, transportation, communications and energy.] does not

Indian Students losing Steam in GMAT!

2004-12-08T11:13:00.000+05:30

When I was at IIT, we used to have an in-hostel acronym called GMAT that means 'Give Me ATtention'! Over a period of time, Indian students desiring to do their masters and doctorates in US universities have been doing just that - telling 'Give Me Attention'! And, today, saw this article in Rediff.com that talks about how Indian students are ranking very poorly in GMAT

English Standards - going down or coming up?

2004-12-03T18:24:00.000+05:30

My basic learning of English consisted of The Hindu, a newspaper in India that has been known for a high degree of proficiency and quality of the written English word. I used to pore over the pages, especially sports editorials and columns, during my school days. Over a period of time, I started finding spelling mistakes and logical / grammatical errors in certain '

Chennai Corporation to collect only segregated garbage

2004-11-29T17:02:00.000+05:30

Come December 4th and the Chennai corporation will only collect segregated garbage. This, I think, is a good initiative. It's important that we citizens too realise the value of having recyclable garbage recycled and non-recyclable garbage segregated. I remember in IIT Madras, we used to have SWARM - Solid Waste Recycling And Management. A voluntary group working in IIT,

2004-11-24T23:17:00.000+05:30

I work at AdventNet, Chennai and blog in AdventNet's public blogs too. Here's my latest as I felt like putting it up on my Pervade blog too. I'm frankly impressed by the branding exercise of Tata Motors. The name 'Indica' connotes a passion for things Indian. People take a pride in owning a car from their own country. Next, they extend the car to a sedan from hatchback and

AMD is nipping at Intel's heels

2004-11-24T11:33:00.000+05:30

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, for short and for convenience) is gaining marketshare from its archrival Intel. They've been foraying into newer areas and slowly penetrating various markets. Even in India, they've come out with a PIC (Personal Internet Communicator) in collaboration with Tata Indicom (read more news here). The PIC is expected to cost $ 185 which is roughly Rs

The Bootstrapper's Bible

2004-11-23T21:53:00.000+05:30

Seth Godin's Bootstrapper's Bible is available for free download from ChangeThis. Pretty interesting though it can get very long after some time. I read his 'Survival is not Enough' and was inspired by this book that 'Zoom' became my blogname at my workplace. Now, Bootstrapper's Bible is not so racy as Survival... was, but then, Seth's got a way with conveying thoughts and

2004-11-23T21:40:00.000+05:30

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Market Makers - Cavin Care

2004-11-23T18:27:00.000+05:30

I'm currently on the finishing stages of the Post-Grad Certificate in Business Management from XLRI - you might've seen some of our blogs at PGCBM Chennai Blogs. I'm working on a project called Market Makers (the stuff that created new markets like GoodKnight mats, Google Search Engine etc). And the topic I've chosen (along with other batchmates) is Cavin Care - the

Power Plays in Business

2004-11-22T14:58:00.000+05:30

I was reading a case on trans-national corporations such as ABB, Philips and Matsushita. I guess as a business increases in size, there's power play and politics that come in the way of better productivity. In that context, I even theorized the following: 1. Any diversifying, distributed business will very likely have a Corporate HQ that assumes lot of power in the overall

Quality Linked by Conversation

2004-11-20T15:42:00.000+05:30

"The quality of an organization is directly linked to the quality of conversations of the people in that organization." Came across this interesting quote. The site was not my find but referenced from Don Iannone's Blog on Economic Development Futures Web Journal.

Change This

2004-11-20T13:06:00.000+05:30

I've been following up on the manifestos posted in ChangeThis. I find them particularly interesting and relevant. The most interesting one I read so far was that of Tom Peters on the truths about offshoring. He argues for the recognition of basic economic laws that will drive offshoring and outsourcing to the place where one gets the best value for money. I also read

vtiger Open Source products

2004-11-03T11:39:00.000+05:30

vtiger is an open source initiative that promises to bring highly affordable enterprise software through effective and intelligent packaging of open source components. This initiative is funded by AdventNet. Currently, vtiger has released vtiger CRM and vtiger Forums and plans to increase its set of offerings over time.

Vivek Rajgopalan's Birthday today!

2004-10-29T10:03:00.000+05:30

Today's my friend Vivek's birthday. He's also called 'sam'. He's a 'cool' mridangam player and is currently busy getting prepared for the Urijazz concerts at Norway (right vivek?). Here's wishing vivek a very happy birthday and all the very best for his concerts.

Kolams, Rangolis and more

2004-10-26T10:36:00.000+05:30

My mom has started blogging. Check out her blogs titled Kolams, Rangolis and more. The kolams that are uploaded in this blog are done through Hello and Picasa. I found that Hello does not work behind proxy but outside proxy, it's a cool software. Also, the Flash-UI (guess so) is quite nice to work with.

Sunsilk - sham, pooh!

2004-10-19T14:45:00.000+05:30

Couldn't think of anything better for the latest Sunsilk Shampoo Ad. Have you checked out the rocky, appealing-to-grey-matter, rain-soaked ad that ends with the punchline 'Mein isko shaadi karunga tab jab yeh doctor ban jaati hain'! I haven't seen a more bekaar ad in years! Every single frame has been so well designed that each tries with the other to stand out on its own. The result is an

Teaching my mom Computers and Blogging

2004-10-18T13:06:00.000+05:30

Earlier days, when people were taught computers, they used to be told about how to start, login, stop etc and a little bit of how to write document on MS Word etc. MS Office was the paramount application. But, today, my mom is learning to operate the computer from home. Nisha (my wife, a.k.a. Rajalakshmy) teaches her how to operate. Guess the pecking order of applications

Community - the network of the future?

2004-10-08T15:02:00.000+05:30

Oftentimes I wonder what separates the brick-and-mortar industry with the click-and-portal industry and then the brick-and-click industry. I feel one thing for sure: that new businesses will thrive only by having a great and engaged community of users for their products or services. There are innumerable examples where successful businesses have been literally propped up by

Some thoughts on social / alumni networking!

2004-09-05T01:21:00.000+05:30

Attended the XLRI PGCBM meeting this evening at Hotel Raj Palace, T.Nagar. Lakshminarasimhan, Sandeep, Kannan and a few others from the Batch 1 had taken good efforts to get the whole lot together. Of course, of the 90, 23 turned up and that was a good number for starters. In the couple of hours we spent together, the talk hovered around what is the objective of the group, why we should meet up

Managers, not MBAs - Leadership is 'Contextual'

2004-06-28T11:40:00.000+05:30

Chanced to see the article about Henry Mintzberg's latest book - Managers not MBAs. Of course, I'm scouting to get and read a copy ASAP. This sounds very confrontational and I like such books that question fundamental conventions every once a while. It helps to look within ourselves and see where we're headed for and understand if that's right. Well, today Management Education is a premium

Taguchi Methods for System testing

2004-06-23T16:48:00.000+05:30

Recently, came across a good technique called the 'Taguchi method for testing' that's apparenty very prevalent in American manufacturing industry for quite some time. The testing technique heavily uses the Orthogonality Theorem that talks of acceptable probabilities for 2 mutually exclusive events in pairs. In my learning, two of my friends, Unni and Deepa helped me get clarified on some of the

Higher education online

2004-06-17T11:05:00.000+05:30

I'm currently doing a post-grad course in business management from the hallowed portals of XLRI, Jamshedpur. This course is held simultaneously across over 30 centres through a satellite-based online delivery mechanism. The delivery mechanism is pioneered by Hughes Escorts Communications Limited under the brand name of DirecWay Global Education. The mechanism works as follows: Every center

Functions and Features

2004-06-02T17:17:00.000+05:30

In software parlance, quite a lot of time, we mix up functions and features. I feel they are unique. In my opinion, Functions are those usecases that can be achieved from the software or application. Features are the external views of functions - the way a function may be exposed. For example, 'Saving a file' is a 'Function'. This can be achieved by multiple features: From Menu bar (Alt+F+S),

Getting users to perform tests

2004-05-27T16:12:00.000+05:30

Typically when we carry out usability tests, we ask our colleagues to check the user interface, perform a few tasks and try to learn from it the UI pain points. But, in course of time, the people we know, start understanding the product so well that they may know more workarounds than we do!! In such times, one has to scout for people who can perform the tests. And, if the organisation is small,

How to attract traffic to Blog sites?

2004-05-15T15:07:00.000+05:30

Does anyone know how to attract traffic to the blog sites? Also, how can I put a hit counter on my blog page?

Debate: Is Marketing more forceful than usability

2004-05-15T12:27:00.000+05:30

Many companies have software that is inherently not very usable. Still, how do they have large scale deployments with such painful-to-work-with software? I think it's because the vendors sold the software to IT managers while the users are those in the line functions! Given this kind of scenario, can you say that it's more important to target the right decision makers and sell your software to

Usability Engineer - what makes one?

2004-05-14T12:40:00.000+05:30

I've been working with different usability engineers during the past 3 years. So, when a friend of mine asked me to sum up what attributes make a usability engineer, here was my list. Usability Engineer Is Creative, Innovative, Communicative, Observant Can Visualize, Architect, Prototype, Empathise Does Usability Measurement, Turn out models quickly Is skilled at Photoshop, DreamWeaver, Flash

Where are the markets headed?

2004-05-13T14:50:00.000+05:30

Elections were anticipated to be the most important event for our economy in the recent times. Even the FIIs pulled out lots of their money from the capital markets in the last few days so much so that the market cap in the indian capital markets was eroded by a stupendous Rs. 55000 Cr! Come election counting episode and much like the later exit polls predicted, the NDA is seen to be taking a