Roshan's Blog

Seasonal Spending

2012-01-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

Chase Bank never stops sending these credit card offers. I usually shred them without even bothering to open them. I got yet another offer today that mentioned a 5% cash back. I got curious and opened it. There are many if's and but's on this offer. However, it is interesting to note the seasonal offering of cash back.

The seasonal breakup tells us how average citizens spend money in America. Spring (April to June) is the time for gardening. Summer is travel time. October to December is holiday shopping and family time. January to March is when people fall sick due to flu and other infections.

A Vacation at Catalina Island

2012-01-01T23:25:00.000-08:00

The boat journey from Long Beach port to Avalon, Catalina Island took forever. My wife and I could not believe the distance between the two points was just 22 miles. We reached Avalon around 6 PM, and the town was already half asleep. What a contrast to LA metropolitan’s hustle and bustle!

Avalon Bay

The first thing we noticed was the absence of cars, trucks, and other big automobiles. They were substituted by golf carts. We found a variety of those little ones on the streets – red, white, blue; gasoline driven, electric powered; noisy, quiet. We thanked Catalina Island for giving us a glimpse into the future. As oil reserves hit bottom, golf carts are likely to become the primary mode of transport, right?

Golf Carts

It was almost 10AM when we ventured out the next day. The streets were deserted. Nobody was in a hurry whatsoever. Most of the pedestrians had the same destination – the starting point of the zip-line tour. That was our first stop too. My wife joined the group of 10 for the 11 AM session. Our three year old son was disappointed that he did not get to wear the same helmet that his mom did. My turn for zip-line came in the afternoon. The first leg, though the easiest of all, was the most difficult one. Once I cleared that, the other four legs were wonderful. Our next adventure was parasailing. Parasailing lacked the adrenaline rush that we got from the zip-line tour. Nevertheless, it was a blissful experience to fly so high as a bird.

My wife zipping through the zip-line

Parasailing

We explored the underwater beauty of the island on a submarine. Garibaldi, the state fish of California, stole the show. The orange colored fish just stood out among all other fish. Our kid enjoyed submarine the most.

Through the submarine window

On the last day of our stay on the island, something dramatic happened. Avalon was no longer a sleepy, laid back town. It had a tsunami of people. The new visitors hurried to stand first in the line for whatever activity they wished to do. Scores of families lined up in groups to capture pictures at Patel points. All shops that were empty the day before had customers waiting outside to get in. Golf cart rentals ran out of carts. Popular rides were sold out for the day.

Mexico bound cruise ship

“What’s wrong today?” my wife and I thought. We found the answer very soon. A Mexico bound cruise ship had stopped over at Catalina Island. All new visitors had brought their cruise atmosphere to the ground. They came in a rush, and left in a rush. The town returned to its peaceful routine by 5 PM. We had a sense of relief, but it was time for us to head back to Long Beach on the turtle paced boat.

How to Manage Googling of Your Brand

2011-12-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I asked one of my friends, “Do you know how far isCatalina Island from Long Beach?” He replied, “Try googling.” Google, a verb? Yes, it is a name of acompany that has transformed into a verb. What should brand managers know aboutbrands becoming verbs, and what should they do about it?

When Nouns becomeVerbs

Let’s analyze under what circumstances do nouns transforminto verbs. Here are some examples of nouns being used as verbs:

“Try googling ‘how to become amillionnaire’.”

“Could you textme your address?”

“Cayne enronedBear Sterns.”

“Members of the opposition party decide to boycott the elections.”

For a noun to become a verb, first, it must be associatedwith an action. For instance, Google goes with internet search, ‘text’ with theaction of sending a text message on a mobile phone, Enron with the downfall ofa giant company because of dubious operating methods of the management. Boycott’sis an interesting story. Charles Boycott was a landowner. The government andthe farm workers of his town decided not to have any business with him, as aresult of which he went broke. Over a period of time, the action of not havinga business became synonymous with “boycotting.”

Second, the action must be either ubiquitous (as ingoogling, text messaging), or unique and (un)popular (as in enroned, boycott).

What’s a Brand

Brand is defined as a “Name, term, design, symbol, or anyother feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct fromthose of other sellers.” A brand could be abstract as in a concept brand(example: Apple, the name of the company), or it could be specific as in acommodity brand (example: Apple iPhone). Brand gets recognition when consumersdevelop a feeling, or a sense of association with the brand. A commodity brand iseasier to imagine, and hence the association grows faster. The associationreaches a new height when the commodity has an action and becomes ubiquitous.In other words, when the brand becomes a verb.

Some argue that brand becoming a verb is the best thing thatcan happen to a brand, because it puts a barrier to entry for its competitors.For example, now that Google is being used as a verb, it makes it difficult fornew entrants to make a mark in the area of internet search. However, thisphenomenon could be good or bad, depending on how the brand managers andmarketers manage the brand. Here are some cases:

Case 1: Name of acompany becomes a verb

Things go wrong when brand managers mix up concept andcommodity brands. The name of the company should be left alone, and not beassociated its single popular commodity. This will not only make the companylook like a “one trip pony,” but also prevent it from expanding into otherbusinesses. For example, people are so accustomed to fedexing overnight packages, they cannot comprehend the idea ofbrowsing internet at a FedEx Express store. They still refer to the latteraction as “going to Kinko’s.”

Google and Xerox are other such examples. Once, while I wasin India, I tried to convince a shopkeeper that Xerox made computers too. Hethought I was crazy, and laughed at me saying, “Why the hell would you go to acomputer to xerox your documents?”Despite Android OS, Chrome, Gmail, Picasa, Google+, people still consider googling as running an internet search.No wonder, search business is still the main bread and butter for Google.

Case 2. Name of acommodity becomes a verb

Skype is another brand that’s often used as a verb. It isnow owned by Microsoft, and carries a great amount of goodwill for being averb. Skype, though a name of a company, is now down to a commodity. Had Skypedecided to expand into other businesses, it would have been extremely tough,because when people talk about skypingout, they know exactly one thing what it means.

Case 3. A brandseparates name and action

The action performed on Twitter is a “tweet.” Twitter userstoday tweet about tweeting on twitter. Tomorrow Twitter may expand into a newbusiness where its users rant about its new service. Unless Twitter enrons ornetflixes itself, it is very unlikely that it will end up as a verb in theurban dictionary.

If you are given a task of managing a brand, even if yoursis a small company with just one product, work towards creating a distinctionbetween your company’s brand and the commodity’s. If your product performs anaction, make it ubiquitous and transform its name into a verb.

What Hummingbirds Teach us about Marketing Mix

2011-11-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

We get lots of birds in our neighborhood. A particular plant that blooms red flowers attracts Humming birds in our front yard. These birds stay there for a second or two. If they sense a large moving body like humans nearby, they vanish in a jiffy. Even though they are wonderful to watch, they disappoint us with the short span of time they give us.

Last week we got a Hummingbird Feeder as a gift. I felt like a three year old when I opened it. Then I prepared the nectar – a deep red concoction of water and a sugary powder. I read the instructions multiple times to make sure I got the proportion correct. The last thing I wanted to see was Hummingbirds turning their back because of the nectar’s unsavory taste. I poured the nectar into the feeder, and nailed the latter on the beam that ran on the edge of the roof facing our backyard.

Hummingbird Feeder waiting for the bird

My expectation had no bounds. I had imagined that many Hummingbirds would show up in no time. But none did. Minutes turned into an hour, an hour into two. It was like opening a new restaurant and waiting for the first customer to show up.

Did I get the right feeder? The feeder looks colorful, but is it good enough to attract the birds? Should the feeder give out some fragrance too? Did I miss anything in the product?

Did I place the feeder at the right place? I had seen Hummingbirds at the front yard, but never on the back yard. Should I move the feeder to the front yard? I did see many other birds on the trees. Are the Hummingbirds afraid of those other birds?

What should I do to attract Hummingbirds? Should I cut the red flowers from the front yard and disperse them in the back yard near the feeder? Should I get more feeders?

In short, did I get the right Marketing Mix – product, place, promotion? Fortunately Hummingbirds don’t have to pay to sip the nectar; else I should have worried about the price too.

Hurray!

After a long wait, the first Hummingbird showed up. My wife shouted, “Hummingbird! Hummingbird!” I came running towards the back door to catch the glimpse of the spectacle. The bird danced up and down with joy. So did we. Then it vanished within a second. It came back after a few moments. This time I had my camera ready set to 800 ISO, 1/1600 shutter speed, 4 aperture, and a zoom lens. I got into action immediately. What a delight it was to shoot our honored little guest!

No, that's not a flower! That's my son's tricycle.

The next day we had not one, not two, but three Hummingbirds competing for the nectar. They went after every thing that had bright colors on them. That was a yet another fabulous sight.

Animal Patterns

2011-09-27T16:42:00.001-07:00

Sustenance Test for The Bay Area Companies

2011-09-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

One of my friends goes to China on business very often. Once he said, “Media has created so much hype about Solyndra in the Bay Area. We should send those guys to Shenzhen once. They will have their jaws down for three days. Shenzhen has hundreds of Solyndras. The smallest plant is ten times bigger than Solyndra.” Indirectly, he meant US must stop creating manufacturing jobs.

Now that Solyndra has filed for bankruptcy, many in the US blame China for all its woes. You tune into a news channel, every talk show host seems to love China-bashing. China, with trade surplus and hefty subsidies to the manufacturing companies, does have an unfair advantage. However, blaming that alone for Solyndra’s debacle is silly. I wish the moderators steer the conversations towards introspection, instead.

Hindsight is always 20-20 (at least for the non myopic eyes). Let’s ask some questions and check whether Bay Area was the right place for Solyndra to survive and sustain. This should also give us an insight about what type of companies might want to establish in the Bay Area. Why? What’s so special about Bay Area? One: high establishment and operational cost. Two: tough California laws.

We could pass companies – big or small – through a sustenance test by asking the following four questions. A company would fail the test if it cannot answer "Yes" to at least one.

1. Does your business model benefit from scale economies?

All software companies operate on scale economies, which means, making more copies of the same software product doesn’t require more people or resources on the same proportional scale. In other words, if the effort to produce one product is $1000, the effort to produce two products is significantly less than $2000.

A pure model of scale economies has only fixed cost and no variable cost. If your business model has both fixed and variable costs, then it’s prudent to have the fixed cost operations in the Bay Area, and variable cost operations elsewhere. As Apple does: design iPhones in Cupertino, but manufacture them in China.

Solyndra did invest heavily in robotics – which contributes significantly towards scale economies for manufacturing. However, the cost of goods sold, labor, inventory, and transportation to name a few are still variable.

2. Do you have a unique customer value proposition that enables you to demand high price for your products and services?

Solyndra did have a value proposition – their cells generated more energy, the cells need not face the sun all the times, and so on. Traditional solar photovoltaic cells that act as the substitutes are good enough for a normal consumer. Therefore, the value proposition isn’t unique. The greater value the Solyndra cells offer doesn’t demand a higher price. By having an establishment in the Bay Area, companies like Solyndra must make up for the high costs by higher prices.

3. Does your business require local presence in order to serve your customers?

Solyndra’s customers are not confined to Bay Area alone. Even if all the consumers were in the Bay Area, they won’t demand that the cells be built locally. For hospitals, construction businesses, retailers, and so on, they add value by staying close to their consumers. Unless your consumers are in the Bay Area, and they expect that you stay close to them, why would you establish a facility there?

4. Do you need access to resources in the local ecosystem?

Bay Area has the world’s largest Venture Capital pool. It has the largest community for technical talent in the United States, if not in the world. If your company innovates on the cutting edge of the technology, then yes, this is the place. Had Facebook or Twitter not been in the Bay Area, the possibility of them making such a scalable, high-quality solution would have been low. Did Solyndra need this ecosystem? Yes – may be, for the innovation side of its business. How about the manufacturing? May be not.

A “Yes,” to an answer doesn’t automatically qualify a company to be in the Bay Area. However, if there is no definite “Yes” to at least one of the questions, it is better to stay out. Solyndra’s answers for the above questions would be: 1-No, 2- No, 3-No, 4-To some extent. Therefore, Solyndra fails to pass the sustenance test.

Let’s compare it with, say, Facebook. Facebook’s answer would be: 1-Yes, 2-Yes, 3-No, 4-Yes, which suggests it’s not a bad idea to be in the Bay Area.

Now look at Tesla: 1-No, 2-Yes, 3-No, 4-To some extent. Now they have a unique value proposition for the customers in their market segment. As they grow, and as the electric cars become more ubiquitous, they will either move out of Bay Area, or they have to innovate something new that keeps them way ahead of others.

Flowers bring Color to Life

2011-08-30T17:27:00.001-07:00

Sleepy Hibiscus

Don't know the name. We have this plant in front of our house. Bees love this plant more than any other.

Coral Medinella

Another plant from my front yard. I wish I knew the name.

Yet another beautiful one that I cannot name.

How to Face Job Interviews

2011-07-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I volunteered at JobTrain (www.jobtrainworks.com), where I got a chance to mentor a couple of job aspirants on how to write good résumé and how to face job interviews. As we were about to start our discussion on job interviews, one of my mentees remarked, “I have heard enough of do’s and don’ts, and I am bored to hear them again. Advise me something valuable that I can take with me today.”

“What could be valuable for this young man?” I asked myself. After a moment of thought, Miyamoto Musashi's “Book of Five Rings” flashed on my mind. Miyamoto Musashi’s guidelines teach a Samurai how to face a combat, and take control of a situation – both planned and unforeseen. An interviewee’s situation is not very different from that of a Samurai, except that for an interviewee it’s a question of getting or not getting the job, and for a Samurai it’s a question of life or death.

Though "Book of Five Rings" has many do's and don'ts, it organizes them very well in such a manner that they stick in a reader's mind forever. It has five chapters – Ground, Water, Fire, Wind, Void. Each chapter transitions beautifully into the next. If an interviewee follows these chapters carefully, the ideas in the chapters come extremely handy during interviews.

1. Ground: Prepare the groundwork for the job you are aspiring for. Learn and practice all the crafts the job requires. Research about the company; know their strengths, weaknesses; learn about their competition. Think about how you could add value to that company. Anticipate the questions that may shower upon you. Practice the answers for, “Introduce yourself, why are you looking for a job?” Prepare a list of questions that you are going to ask.

2. Water: Blend yourself well with the environment where you are being interviewed. Reach the place early. Get used to the place, people, lighting, etc. Make yourself comfortable by the time interviewer greets you and shakes your hand. Watch out for the cues that tell you about the norms of the interviewer. Blend with the interviewer’s culture. For example, if the interviewer is a serious, I-hate-nonsense kind of a person, you too answer to the point. On the other hand, if the interviewer is a take-it-easy person, make sure to show that you are friendly, social person too.

3. Fire: A fire produces warmth, and can be aggressive too. Be assertive in your tone. Never lose your presence of mind. Show positive, warm attitude. All jobs require that you be tough at times. Many interviewers are naïve; they try to demean you. Be careful not to take those remarks and comments personally. Always answer a question, but never answer back. If you don’t know, don’t lose heart. Everybody doesn’t know everything.

4. Wind: Let your thoughts flow as fast as the wind. Do not get lost searching for answers or explanations. Get a piece of paper or stand up to a white board while crunching numbers or while showing things visually. Write bullet points wherever necessary. Say all you want to say in short. Give your best in the small amount of time available.

5. Void: At end of the interview, be aware that you have got nothing to lose – whether you get or not get the job. If you happen to get the job and join your new employer, very soon you will aspire to moving higher or a different position. Then you will find your job, the job you got through the interview, less worthy. Therefore, do not be too happy or too sad about the outcome.

The young man jumped with joy as I explained the fourth chapter. The last chapter confused a hell out of him. I guess, it required some experience in life to understand the chapter of Void. I told him, “Do not worry about it. Give your best in the interview, and in the job. Then start preparing ground for your next job. Good luck!” Then we bid goodbye. My mentee seemed satisfied. I surely was.

Carnivorous Plants

2011-07-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Those who thought of plants as harmless, 'vegetarian' creatures, got it totally wrong. There are carnivorous plants too. (I shot these pictures at Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.)

Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes)

Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia)

Venus Flytrap

July 4th Fireworks

2011-07-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

These are the fireworks at Pier 39 in San Francisco. I captured them from Treasure Island, the island that sits in the middle of the Bay Bridge. I wish we could see the fireworks with the San Francisco skyline in the backdrop. The fireworks were so far away from the island that they looked like teeny tiny insects when I shot them on a wide angle lens. I then switched to 70-300mm zoom.

Waiting on the Treasure Island shore for 3 hours with the cold wind blowing on the face, and getting stuck in the traffic jam after the fireworks weren't pleasant experiences. I forgot them all after looking at these pictures.

Levels of Happiness

2011-06-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

A fresh fruit and vegetable store, just two minutes from our house, sells yummy cherries for as little as $2 a pound. Despite this, we went on an hour long drive to Brentwood to experience cherry-picking.

Sonu Nigam, the legendary Bollywood singer performed at San Jose last Saturday evening. My wife and I love his songs. We could have spent a relaxed evening at home and listened to his wonderful music from our CD/MP3 collection. Instead, we spent quite a bit of money to attend his live concert.

What motivated us to make our decisions in both cases?

Let’s take a closer look:

1. Eating cherries makes us happy. Finding the cherries on the trees and plucking them on our own gives more joy.

2. Listening to recorded music is not a bad idea at all, but listening to live music gives us extra satisfaction.

Perhaps, it’s that extra satisfaction that boosts us to go an extra mile.

Cherries (how satisfied my heart feels for I captured it).

On the same lines, growing a cherry tree in the backyard ourselves, watching the fruits bloom, plucking them when they are ripe, and eating them would give us even higher degree of satisfaction than cherry picking at Brentwood. Similarly, in performing arts, watching others perform does make us happy. But if we attain a level where we can perform on the stage or create a phenomenal piece of art that we can exhibit, it would be a result of many years of practice, effort and endurance. The amount of happiness we experience then would be immense.

Happiness comes in many levels. In Sanskrit, each level of happiness has its own name – ananda (happy), aatmaananda (very happy), paramaananda (very, very happy), brahmaananda (extremely happy). The general population usually feels contented with just ananda. A few take an extra step for aatmaananda. It’s very rare that people take extra effort to experience paramaananda or brahmaananda. Very few blessed ones perceive them, and persevere to attain them.

IKEA, The Pied Piper

2011-06-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

IKEA is like a modern day Pied Piper. People go there with no real reason to go, and buy when there’s no real need to buy. What makes IKEA spectacular is not its collection of goods or furniture, but its understanding of the psychology of humans and their impulsive buying decisions. We paid a visit to IKEA last Sunday. And, yet again we purchased stuff that we may not use at all. Those teeny tiny things carry teaser price tags. How could we walk out of the shop, and then think, “I wish I had bought that little picture frame!”

Some of the colorful abstract displays caught my imagination. I wish I could paint them on a canvas. Nevertheless, I captured them on my iPhone, and GIMPed them to get a touch of cubism.

As we walked out of the store, my wife and I noted a few interesting points from our Sunday’s experience:

• Not so long ago, maple and softwood colored furniture was an IKEA trademark. This time we could notice a drastic shift towards black and white.

• There were fewer in-store personnel than they were in the past.

• Customers had a hard time using self checkout kiosks. The kiosks were small and messy. It looked like IKEA folks purchased some kiosks that were meant for grocery stores. However, that did not deter some highly determined customers from scanning voluminous heavy items even though they did not pass through the pathway.

• The season being summer, we expected many customers to show up. About four years ago, the parking lot would be so full on a summer weekend that we would circle round and round to find an empty spot. Blame the economy?

• If the checkout agent makes a mistake by scanning your item twice, and if you figure that out after you have paid for it, she cannot credit back the money to your credit card. You will need to go to “Return Items” section, wait in a line that can make you wait for hours to get your refund. And they won’t apologize for making the mistake or for making you wait.

Television and Computer Convergence: Why It Won't Happen

2011-06-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

“Convergence” was a popular buzzword in the high-tech space a few years ago. We don’t hear too much about it these days. Perhaps, the word “cloud” has clouded all other buzzwords. Nevertheless, "convergence" is still a popular word that can mean many things in different fields.

In high-tech, Convergence is a viewpoint that television and computer are going to converge into being one electronic device. With the convergence, television screen and computer monitor would become synonymous. Yes, today we can add an RF tuner to a PC to catch television signals. Almost all new LCD/LED televisions have built-in support for browsing and watching streaming video on sites such as YouTube. Are we at a point where we can declare victory for convergence?

More computational power alone won’t substitute a television for a personal computer. The type experience consumers seek in a television very different. Television is an immovable, static box that sits at a corner of a living room. People expect less interaction and more entertainment. No wonder Samsung, Sony, LG, Philips, or Visio did not include keyboard as a television accessory. If you are designing an application for a television, you may have all the computational power that your application may need, but it will never have a keyboard.

The notion of personal computer is moving away from the concept of a desktop to a hand held device such as a smart phone or a tablet computer. People spend a good amount of time connecting with their friends on social networks and watching a bunch of viral videos shared by their friends. Watching Netflix or YouTube on an iPad is an incredible experience. However, this mode of entertainment is more personal, and has little value in a living room. How awkward it would look if everybody in a family got together in a family room and watched the live stream of the same sport on his or her own personal device!

Pictures from Monterey Bay

2011-05-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

Monterey Peninsula is one of the favorite weekend getaways for Bay Area residents. Ocean View Boulevard and Sunset Drive offer picturesque rock and sand beaches for the visitors. Photography enthusiasts can enjoy a gala time shooting waves and birds. The beaches are a wonderful place to relax too.

Native Flowers of California

2011-04-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

California Native Plant Society (www.cnps.org) is doing an excellent job in preserving habitats of rare native plant species, and educating people about the need for preservation. More than everything, the society is running an awareness campaign about why people should grow native plants in their gardens. Native plants don’t need as much water as the nonnatives do. That saves many thousands, if not millions of gallons of water every year. One can find lot more information on their website.

Who says wild flowers aren’t beautiful? Santa Clara chapter of the society conducted a flower show in Mission College, Santa Clara. I got a chance to shoot some pictures.

Buckwheat

Cobweb Tistle

Checker Bloom

Lindley's Blazing Star

California Poppy

Fringe Pod

Hare's Tail

A wild flower, don't know the name

Three Places to Visit

2011-04-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

Today being the Earth Day, it reminds me of the three extremely remote places I wish to travel – Pitcairn Islands, Qaanaaq in Greenland, and Mt. Kailash/Manasa Sarovar in Tibet.

1. Pitcairn Islands: It is the world’s most remote and least populated jurisdiction. It has a population of only 48 people. The only way to get here is to fly to Tahiti and then ride a ship for two days. Apart from seeking solace for myself at this distant place, I wish to learn what motivates such a small population to dwell in the middle of nowhere. I hope Pitcairn Islands will give me a glimpse into the future by thousands of years, for this how the earth is going to be when most of the land goes under water.

Location of Pitcairn Islands in the middle of Pacific Ocean
(Picture courtesy: wikitravel.org)

2. Qaanaq, Greenland: Qaanaq is 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle making it the second most northern place with human habitation. Once again, I am intrigued by what motivates people to live in these extreme climatic conditions. I definitely do not want to go here in winter, because summer will be cold enough. I also wish to take a dip in Greenland’s hot springs, and get a bunch of good photographs of glaciers and colorful homes.

A Picture of Qaanaaq
(Picture courtesy: www.citynewphotos.com)

3. Mt. Kailash/Manasa Sarovar: Manasa Sarovar is the highest fresh water lake in the world. There is also a spiritual element for my wish to travel to this place, for it is one of the holiest places for Hindus. While Manasa Sarovar is a fresh water lake full of life, Rakshastal, another big lake that lies right next to it is just opposite. The latter is salt water lake, and supports no aquatic life. How can nature be so perfect in symbolizing the coexistence of good and evil, light and dark, sweet and bitter, pure and impure?

Mount Kailash in the backdrop, Oval shaped Manasa Sarovar
on the right, Rakshastal on the left.
(Picture courtesy: wikipedia.org)

Flu, Flu, Go Away, and Don't Come Again

2011-04-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

For poets and birds, April is “Spring, the sweet spring, the year’s pleasant king.” For taxpayers in the US, April is the “Tax Season.” And for those who are like me, April is the “Allergy Season.” If you are allergic to pollens, you will know how dreadful this season is. This year, as with every year, I stayed determined to face those wretched pollens that roam around freely in open air. However, I was taken aback by a surprise ambush, not by the pollens, but by the virus that belong to the family of Orthomyxoviridae. Yes, Flu virus.

One morning I woke up with severe head ache. By noon the same day, all my body ached. I was tired by evening, and at night I had a temperature of 102 degree Fahrenheit. Wise men say ideal couple share pain and happiness. So I transferred some of my virus to my wife too, and she went through the same cycle after me. Fortunately, our two year old remained insulated from us. He had had flu shots few months ago. Why didn’t we too take those shots then? Damn!

Both my wife and I rushed to the doctor the next day. Thanks to the media for creating so much hype about Swine Flu. We wanted to rule out the possibility of H1N1 type affecting our body. What a sigh of relief when the result was negative for H1N1!

I didn’t have sore throat for the first two days. The third day when I opened my eyes in the morning, I felt as if somebody had placed a double edged knife inside my throat. I couldn’t swallow anything; not even my saliva. The pain peaked on the night after fourth day. I hadn’t had cough until the fifth day. Then cough showed up with vengeance. Cough was so bad that it seemed to be worse than the sore throat, body ache, or the fever. Now I am in my eighth day of Flu, and cough still persists. Same story with my wife too.

Lesson learned: don’t ignore the signs “Flu Shots Given Here.” If the signs say, “No appointment necessary,” never think twice. Walk in and get yourself vaccinated.

Lessons from Parking Citation

2011-02-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

Granting extra autonomy to the cities to make their own laws serves some good purposes. First, it empowers people at grass roots. Second, it allows cities to cater to the people’s needs that are specific to their region. While the idea sounds good, the system, when enforced, does have some drawbacks. Take my story for example.

The Citation. It's ironical that I affix a Liberty Bell postal stamp.

Few days ago, we visited our friend’s family that lives in the city of Arcadia, CA. After a wonderful stay for a couple of days, we prepared to head back home. We bid good bye, loaded our luggage, and got settled inside our car. As I was starting the car, I noticed a white envelope that was left hanging beneath the windshield wiper. I stepped out to see what it was. It was a citation for parking violation. “What?!!” I exclaimed. It was a peculiar feeling – a mixture of confusion, frustration, and amusement. The car was parked perfectly well from all angles. It was parked within a feet of the curb, the curb wasn’t painted red, and there was no No Parking sign anywhere nearby. The only sign was the one that said, “No Parking Wednesdays from 8AM to 10AM,” and we weren’t in that window. So why did I get a citation? The reason given behind the receipt was “Overnight Parking.”

Street Signs

Apparently, the city of Arcadia has a rule that no vehicles must be parked on the streets overnight. I felt determined to contest the citation, and requested for an administrative review. I cited all the reasons, attached all the street pictures. My appeal, however, did not stand ground. What was the reason stated? “Signs at entrances to city.” It’s awful that the city administration expects the visitors to stop their cars by the side of the freeways and read all the signs before entering the city.

Grounds for Dismissal

Though I could have appealed yet again, I decided not to go for it. I paid the $53 fine and washed my hands. The so called democratic institutions, however transparent, still exhibit traits of oligarchy. I could possibly win against the city of Arcadia, but the chances are very low. Facing penalties for no fault of yours is a part and parcel of the system. Shouldn’t we adapt to live in that system?

Juggling Made Easy

2011-01-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

Juggling is good for you: it improves your hand-eye coordination, builds your focus, refreshes your mind, and makes you happy. Juggling helps you make friends with young kids instantly. It’s also an impressive tool to stop a two year old from crying. I have been juggling for over fifteen years now. If you don’t know how to juggle, you are missing something in your life. So, go and get three tennis balls or three juggling balls, and get ready.

To learn how to juggle, you need to know two things:

1. How to throw a ball in one hand and catch it on the other. To be precise, if you throw the ball from your right hand, you should be able to catch it on your left, and if you throw from your left, you should catch it on your right. If you can’t do this with little or no effort, then practice doing it until you perfect it.

2. The concept of two step rhythm. As in the men in uniform do while marching – “Left-right, left-right, left-right....” Notice that both left and right come at regular intervals.

Figure 1. The Trajectory

Assuming that you are comfortable with throwing, catching, and with the concept of rhythm, let’s jump onto juggling. Figure 1 shows the overall trajectory of the balls. If the figure scares you, don’t worry, you will know what it is very soon. Just follow these steps:

Step 1: Hold two balls in your right hand, one ball in your left. Say “One” aloud and toss one of the two balls from your right hand up in the air. The ball should take the trajectory as shown in Figure 2 – it goes up from inside and comes down from outside.

Figure 2. Step 1 - how to start.

Step 2: Wait for the ball in air to descend. Now you need to catch the ball on your left hand, but you already have a ball in that hand. Free up your hand by tossing the ball in your left hand high in air. Shout, “Two” while you do that. The trajectory follows Figure 3. Bring your left hand inwards and toss the ball, then you take your left hand outwards and catch the descending ball. Throwing from inside and catching outside avoids mid-air collision.

Figure 3. Step 2 - Throw from your left

Step 3: This is a mirror image of Step 2. Wait for the ball to descend. Just before you are about to catch the ball, bring your right hand inwards, shout “One” and toss the ball that’s in your right hand high.

Figure 4. Step 3 - Throw from your right

Step 4: Repeat Step 2. Shout “Two” and toss the ball that’s in your left hand; catch the ball on your left.

As you can see, you are building a two step rhythm – one-two, one-two, one-two. Also note that

1. You call the numbers only when you toss the ball, and not while catching it.

2. There are only two steps, even though you have three balls.

3. Contrary to what you see in cartoons and clip arts, only one ball is in air at a time. As you gain more control over tossing and catching, you will probably have all the three balls in air for a fraction of a second in each cycle. This is gives the viewers an impressing that all three balls are in air.

Isn't the whole thing so easy? Have fun!

Parenting Challenges: Wrong Choices

2011-01-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

Over zealous parents always put extra effort to give best things to their kids. However, very often, their best choice differs significantly from that of the kids. This happened to us a few days ago. How wrong were we in our judgment about the needs of our two year old!

Our son loves exploring new stuff. Backyard animals such as squirrels, ducks, birds, dogs, and cats amuse him the most. He jumps with joy when he watches animals, birds and fish on television, or on the computer screen, or these days on iPad. So, my wife and I decided that he would enjoy a day at Monterey Bay Aquarium.

He was extremely excited when he first saw a big pond of fish. “Look at that big fish! Hey, there’s an orange fish. There’s another one,” he exclaimed. At that moment, I guess our excitement was a hundred times higher than his. Our son's enthusiasm was shortlived. He got bored in five minutes. He just wanted to get out of that place. But how could we give up our excitement? We spent few more hours at the aquarium. “Perhaps,” we thought, “he would get excited by the sea otter, or the jelly fish.” Now looking back, I can say we were certainly wrong. Going all the way to Monterey to show fish to a two year old is totally worthless.

When we imagine kids and snow, the only thing we see in our mind is kids playing in the snow. My wife and I shopped winter and snow friendly clothes for our two year old. Just the thought of him playing in the snow was wonderful.

We were at Soda Springs, Tahoe last week. We had sun and clear blue skies, but the temperature was below 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Five layers of clothes, a monkey cap, and a pair of gloves made sonny feel really uncomfortable. He started crying once he was out of the car, and he continued his whining the next four hours until we returned to our car. The biting cold bit him hard. He cried so much that the tears from his eyes froze on his cheeks.

Soda Springs is supposed to be a kid friendly ski resort. However, it’s definitely not so friendly with cranky kids and their parents. Out of four hours that we spent at the resort, we spent three and a half hours waiting in one or the other line. They had long lines for everything – tickets, restrooms, sleigh ride, tubes, and even to buy something to eat. End of the day, my arms had fatigue after carrying our son all the time. The only solace we got was from a freight train that passed by the resort. Those were the precious ten minutes our son got distracted and stopped crying.

Santa Clara University

2010-12-10T17:11:00.001-08:00

Santa Clara University - Lucas Hall and other places

More of San Francisco Chinatown

2010-11-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

Chinatown in San Francisco always has many colorful things to show you. If you are into photography and love colors, this is one of the greatest places to spend some time. I had said some nice things about this place few years ago: http://hkroshan.blogspot.com/2007/08/san-franciscos-china-town.html. It's time to repeat them with some more pictures.

Incense Boxes

Table Lamps

The Buddha

Chinese Traditional Lantern

Colorful Shoes

Silhouette of a Pagoda

Buzzword Compliance

2010-10-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

“We are taking our software to cloud. I am all excited about it, but I am also exhausted with so much work,” said one of my friends. He is a product marketing manager at a software firm.

“Ah! Then you must be spending significant effort in redesigning your software?” I asked.

“No, not really. We are not changing our software. We always had our software hosted as a service on the internet. We are just repackaging and repositioning it as a cloud service,” he said.

I didn’t understand what he was saying. I tried to clarify by saying, “When you said you were taking your software to cloud, I thought you meant you were making it compliant with Amazon Web Services or something.”

“Oh! No! We are not making it compliant with Amazon Cloud. We are just trying to stay buzzword compliant. Else, the market will think we are behind, nah? In fact, we have a marketing policy to stay buzzword compliant. We need to address every buzzword in our sector.”

I got intrigued. I had heard about company policies that meet regulatory compliances such as SOX and PCI, but nothing about meeting buzzword compliance requirements. I asked, “Do you think your customers are so dumb that they buy your story about you supporting cloud? Won’t they disapprove your own interpretation of cloud?”

My friend laughed and said, “It’s all about perception management. Let’s say you go to a mobile phone store. If you are offered two phones, one with a stamp of ‘smart’ on it, and the other that’s not smart, which one would you buy?” He paused for a while as I was thinking. “Do you really bother to learn the real definition of a smart phone?”

He continued, “Just imagine the downside of not having the buzzword ‘cloud’ in our sales pitch, white papers, and brochures. We hold no position in our go-to-market strategy today. Staying buzzword compliant is important. You must tune your ears to the same frequency of that of your customers. At times, you must tell the story that your customers want to hear”

What my friend said could be true, but where do you draw the line between a fad and a trend? How do you assess the value of going buzzword compliant? How do you estimate the downside of not going with the buzz? How do you create and manage a buzz? What are the risks of following a buzz?

Breaking Wave

2010-10-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

A Breaking Wave on Pacific Ocean near Half Moon Bay, CA

Use Porter's Five Forces to Analyze Your Employability

2010-10-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

It’s quite old news that Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides shared this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-11/peter-diamond-mortensen-pissarides-share-2010-nobel-prize-for-economics.html). The press release at the official Nobel Prize website said, “The laureates’ models help us understand the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy.” Just last week, The Economist said that 17 million people lost their jobs during the recent economic downturn (http://www.economist.com/node/17173957?story_id=17173957 ). Everybody – from economists to politicians – wants to talk about (un)employment.

As the world goes through economic cycles, old jobs go and new jobs come. If you depend on a job for your living, you must always ask yourself, “How stable is my job in the present market? How can I ensure that I am employed while the economic cycles shift? How many job openings match my skill set? How many candidates apply for that job, and how can I differentiate myself? Let’s say I get the job, how much bargaining power do I have while negotiating my benefits package?” Or, is there a way you can analyze your job situation even better?

Porter’s Five Forces Model (http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml) gives us excellent framework to analyze forces that affect an industry. Borrow some ideas from this model and analyze the forces that affect your job sector:

1. Barriers to entry: What barriers do other people on this planet have to get this job? Is it specialized knowledge, unique talent, or government barriers?
2. Threat of substitutes: Does my job face a threat of getting eliminated because of automation or outsourcing?
3. Rivalry: Are there too many people with same skill set as mine who are waiting to be employed? Is the job highly attractive and scarce?
4. Buyer power (employer power): How concentrated are the employers? How profitable are they? How’s their industry outlook?
5. Supplier power (employee power): Does employer's performance depend heavily on employee performance? Is there more demand and less supply of people with required skills?

If you do it right, you will immediately know how favorable your job market is. If you find it unfavorable, make a switch. If you want to play it strategically safe, keep yourself always employable: look ahead, build relationships, establish connections, and acquire right knowledge and skills.

Fallen Leaf Lake

2010-10-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

A quiet evening at Fallen Leaf Lake, which is a few miles south of Lake Tahoe, CA.

Mono Lake

2010-09-08T19:15:00.001-07:00

We arrived at Mono Lake after a long, picturesque, fun-filling drive over the Tioga Pass. All of a sudden, all the tall alpine trees had vanished behind the mountains. The nature had betrayed the leeward side of the Sierras; it was a dry desert, covered by short, brown shrubs. From a distance, the lake looked lifeless and uninteresting. Mark Twain called Mono Lake, “Lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on earth.” He said, “Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.”

Mark Twain was wrong, so were we. The lake had many pleasant surprises to offer. We drove on a gravel road to reach a point called South Tufa. The time was perfect – just a few minutes before sunset. The ground beneath the lake was completely covered by a bed of yellow flowered shrubs. What a wonderful sight that made! We could hear the sea gulls squeak as we walked on the trail towards the lake. Hundreds, if not thousands of sea gulls greeted us when we reached the shore. Tall pillar like stone structures called 'tufas' made the place more interesting.

Sea Gulls

Tufa and the lake during sunset

The lake, the birds, and the tufas were so impressive that we came back once again the next morning to witness the sunrise. The sea gulls were already busy in the water. I mounted my tripod and captured some pictures of the tufas. Then a dramatic event occurred – the sun showed up behind the mountains. All the birds that were not seen till then came out from hiding. There were so many of them, I just can’t imagine. This was one of the best things I had ever experienced. How could this be the loneliest spot on earth?

Mono Lake just before sunrise

Sunrise

The Birds

An alkali fly on a flower

Now that I am back from my long weekend vacation, I checked the facts about Mono Lake (I should have done it before the trip, but then I would have missed all the surprises). The lake has a distressing story. One can read more about it at http://www.monolake.org/about/story. Here are some of the other facts that I found interesting:

1. The lake is an alkaline lake. It is three times saltier than the ocean.

2. There are no fish in the lake. Algae, brine shrimp and alkali fly contribute to the food chain.

3. More than 80 species of migratory birds visit Mono Lake for breeding during summer. Many of them arrive in thousands, and one of them – Eared Grabes – arrives in millions.

4. 85% of the California Gulls are born in Mono Lake. If you see a sea gull in San Francisco, it is likely born in Mono Lake.

5. Mono Lake has an active volcano underneath. Tufas are limestone towers that grow because of volcanic activity.

Mono Lake is certainly one of the most beautiful tourist destinations. I wonder why it is not as popular as Yosemite. Or, perhaps it is better for the birds if we let the lake live on its own.

Price Bracketing

2010-08-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

What’s the price of a lollipop? If you are guessing numbers, you are jumping far ahead. Just like any other item on sale, lollipop has no absolute price. Studies in Behavioral Economics suggest that human beings get utterly confused when they think about the price of anything. Despite the confusion, we make buying decisions – some impulsive, and some thoughtful – every day.

What makes us, humans, convinced that the price we pay is the right price? The answer: we get helped by a ‘reference price’ or the ‘anchor.’ For example, when we go to Starbucks, we compare the price of a Cappuccino with other espresso drinks and subconsciously get convinced that $3 is an agreeable price for a Cappuccino. Had other espresso drinks be priced around $1, we would not buy the Cappuccino. Imagine any item from cars to homes, phones to televisions, and candies to chewing gums; we always check the price of other items in the same category before we convince ourselves what is the right price.

Now, that we know something about human behavior and reference price, how could we apply this learning while setting the price of a new product in a new product category that’s developed for a new market?

Let’s say we make a lollipop that’s unique in many ways: it’s organic, natural, colorful, and yummier than all other lollipops. Our market research tells us that this lollipop sells like a hot cake in upscale, organic stores like Whole Foods. Microeconomic analysis of our intelligent estimates on demand, sales, and cost of production and other overheads, which most marketing textbooks teach us, helps us in finding an optimum price for profit maximization. To keep our discussion going, let’s assume that we conclude that $10 is a good price for a pack of 20 lollipops, and we do enough television, radio promotions to promote the brand and attract attention. That completes 4 Ps, the marketing mix, which many call “the winning formula”:

Product: A pack of lollipops that have unique value proposition
Place: Upscale stores
Promotion: Advertisements
Price: $10 for a pack of 20 lollipops

This formula looks good from a marketing manager’s perspective. However, when we put ourselves in the consumers’ shoes, we see two problems depending on what we perceive about lollipops:

If we identify these lollipops as “new” in their category, we don’t have a reference price to compare against.
If we identify them with other lollipops, we find it over priced. Some percentage of the consumers treats high price as premium price, and some as ridiculous.

In short, some consumers fail to get a reference price, while some get a wrong reference price.

One way of handling reference price is to disguise the reference price with a promotion. Yes! Discounts. The marked price becomes the reference price and the discounted price becomes the actual price. Most of us are familiar with this trap.

“Price Bracketing” is one of the powerful techniques (or one of the tricks, as you may call it) that comes to rescue while pricing a new product for a new category. Price Bracketing recommends developing three versions of our product – the low end, the high end, and the middle one. The middle one is the item we aim to sell more. In case of our lollipops – we could have a pack of 12 lollipops at $9, 20 lollipops at $10, and 30 lollipops at $15. Now consumers compare with your three products. When a consumer compares $9 pack with $10 pack, she of course finds more value in the $10 pack. Dan Ariely uses the term placebo for $9 and $15 packs in his book Predictably Irrational.

Apple's Bracket Pricing for iPad: it stopped people from comparing iPad's price with Kindle's

Apple, Sony, Samsung, Toyota, and many other companies are pioneers in Price Bracketing. They regularly introduce new products into the market, and effectively manage human pricing perceptions through Price Bracketing.

Spider Web

2010-08-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a spider built this magnificent web right at our front door to remind us that it was Friday, 13th. Capturing it on the camera was tricky. At first I tried to blur the background. When that did not work, my wife helped me in getting the dark background. She held a black card board behind the web, but in front of the light source.

Circling the Intersections of a Star: A Puzzle

2010-07-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

My wife asked me to solve an interesting puzzle yesterday. She challenged if I can circle nine points of intersection on a star of five sides (by following rules that I explain below). I tried for about an hour and gave up. The maximum I could circle was eight. The problem haunted me all through the night. More than the puzzle, I guess, it was the idea of my defeat in front of my wife that bothered me more. What would I say if she asked me, “Hey, haven’t you found a solution, yet?”

Fortunately, we did not discuss anything about the puzzle this morning. I went home during lunch break this afternoon. I needed some peaceful time where I could be all by myself to work on the problem. I grabbed my son’s magnetic doodle in hand, determined to achieve a breakthrough at any cost. I was stuck at eight circles for a while. Then I stumbled into a cool pattern that circled nine points. I called my wife at once to declare my victory. Unfortunately she did not pick the phone.

She called me sometime later and asked, “Why did you call?”

I said, “I solved your problem. I circled nine intersections.”

She paused for a second and asked, “So?”

“What do you mean by, so? Don’t you feel happy that I solved it?”

She laughed and said, “Did you call me just for that? I didn't know you took it so seriously”

That’s the story.
Here is the problem:

Draw a five sided star as shown in Figure 1. The star has 10 points of intersection – A through J. Your goal is to circle nine points of intersection by following the rules given below.

1. You circle a point of intersection by making a valid move.

2. A valid move traverses exactly three points of intersections – starting point, the adjacent point that you hop, and the next point that you circle. In Figure 1, ABD is a move that starts at A, hops through B to reach D. D is the point that you circle at the end of your move. You cannot start at a point and circle its adjacent point, nor can you circle a point that’s three hops away.

3. You start your new move at any point of intersection that’s not circled. You cannot start your move from a circled point.

4. All the points in a move must be in a straight line.

5. When you start your game, you can start from any point.

Figure 2 shows valid moves and Figure 3 some invalid ones. CBJ is invalid, because you cannot start a move at C, which is already circled. EFG is invalid because it is not in a straight line.

Figure 4 is a sample solution that covers only six points of intersection in six moves. I thought of posting the final solution. But there won’t be any fun left if I publish it.

July 4th Fireworks

2010-07-05T11:01:00.001-07:00

This is how the fireworks looked yesterday from our next-door Henry Schmidt Park in Santa Clara, CA. I shot these pictures on a tripod with these settings - ISO 100, F11, shutter speed varying from 3 seconds to 10 seconds, and focus set to hyperfocal distance. I used GIMP to crop the pictures and make a collage.

Making Soccer More Interesting

2010-07-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

One of my American colleagues plainly declared, “Soccer is a boring game. I don’t want to waste my time watching a few players pass the ball and not score much.” At first I could not believe that somebody would say such a thing about this beautiful game. I thought for a while, and then I felt he was goddamn correct. At least three of the four matches in the 2010 world cup have bored me for a simple reason – the score doesn’t move.

Today’s game – Ghana vs. Uruguay – proved that point right. The game was depressingly boring until towards the end of the extra time, when a Uruguayan timidly tried to transform the game of ‘football’ into ‘handball’ (he got a red card). However, Ghana could not convert the penalty (how sad!). And then there were penalty shootouts. And, yes! The scores now moved fast. The game now had tension and commotion, which made it really, really interesting. I prayed for Ghana to win, only because Uruguay did not deserve it. Now that an undeserved team won the game, my colleague will have another reason to dislike soccer.

Frequency distribution of total goals scored in each game

Can FIFA make the game more interesting? Of course, yes. It should try everything possible to increase the possibility of goal scoring for both the teams. Look at the frequency distribution of total goals scored per match. The distribution is skewed on the lower side. If FIFA can shift this towards right, spectators get to watch 20 to 30 goals being scored in each game. That’s going to be wonderful. Some may argue that that’s going to dilute the value of goal. So what? That’s going to raise the value of the game too.

How about these ideas:

1.Remove the offside rule. The rule encourages defensive game, and it’s controversial.

2.Make the goal post bigger – increase the width by five feet on either side of the goal post and height by two feet.

3.Discourage the strategy of intentionally slowing the game. The team that leads by a goal or two does this towards second half of the game.

a. Disallow possession of the ball by one side by more than 30 seconds.

b.Award 50 feet penalty for the team that kicks the ball out. The team that throws the ball in gets a 50 feet advantage. Worse, allow ‘kick in’ instead of throw in.

4.Allow more substitutions; let fresh players come in.

Last, but not the least. To make the viewing experience better, get Spanish commentators to all English channels. After listening to Spanish commentary on television, it’s impossible for me to switch back to the dull, somber English commentary. I don’t understand even a bit of Spanish. But I can follow everything they say. Even my 20 month old loves it when they cry “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.”

How to say "Don't Smoke Here"

2010-06-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

Just watch how this would make sense if you insert a semi colon after "smoke": "Please smoke; in designated areas only." The message actually pleads people to smoke. That's so funny!

Shouldn't this board be saying, "Don't Smoke! If you ever want to smoke, try a patch. If you still want to smoke, then don't do it here. Go to designated smoking areas!"?

Make your next visit to Half Moon Bay worthwhile

2010-06-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

Half Moon Bay is a popular destination for beach lovers. Visitors to this area normally turn in with great excitement. On their way to this place, they drive through the cliffs and dips of Highway 1 – the road that runs right next to the magnificent Pacific Ocean. "What a wonderful view! Look at the deep blue color of the ocean," they exclaim. Then they see the first "Beach Access" sign board, and they immediately hit the brakes and make a sharp turn to reach the beach in a jiffy. They just can't wait to get out of the car and head into the water.

They open the door, and are taken by surprise. A strong gush of cold air smacks at their faces. Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer in San Francisco." Half Moon Bay is a few miles south of San Francisco, and the weather over here is not very different from that of the latter. The water temperature is about 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the air outside, which makes it even more disappointing to the visitors.

Crowd at the beach adds insult to the injury. And, it is not just humans that make the crowd. Dogs add a new spin to the chaos. Dog owners must first learn to love the beaches as much as they love their dogs. That alone can motivate them to clean up their dogs' leftovers. There are other things too - empty bottles, plastic bags, food leftovers, etc. - that make the list of littered items long. It is easy to pass laws against littering, but hard to enforce them.

How can you make your visit to Half Moon Bay worthwhile?

1. Check the weather. Temperature alone doesn't tell you everything. Watch out for hidden things like wind chill, fog, and clouds.

2. Be wise; do not pick a beach that's close to the town. Drive 10-15 miles south of Half Moon Bay. You will find some exotic beaches. They are quit and clean.

3. Carry warm clothing. Even during midsummer.

4. Don't plan to get into water, unless you are a professional surfer wearing a wetsuit.

Pomponio State Beach - just before sunset

Sunset at Pomponio State Beach

We followed these rules last Saturday. The weather was perfect. We picked Pomponio State Beach, which is about 11 miles south of Half Moon Bay. Our little 19 month old son enjoyed the picnic the most.

A Collage of Clouds

2010-05-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

While everybody in the technology industry is focused on running software on cloud, I take a step back to check how it looks to run clouds on software. It looks awesome. I captured all these clouds on my iPhone, and edited them on Gimp.

Cloud Computing evangelists may take many more years until they convince every IT person on the planet that putting software on cloud is a neat thing to do. On the other hand, anybody who looks at the cloud collage, will easily conclude that it's a nice thing to put clouds on software.

Trivial Learnings

2010-05-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Some of the trivial things I learned recently:

How to say no: This is an advice from my professor. If somebody asks for a favor, and if you have to say no, he suggests, just say “no” with a broad smile. The body language should ask the question, “How can I say ‘Yes’? You are kidding, right? ” When you do that, he says, there is very little room for the other person to bargain.

I guess, it takes time to put this into action. In the last few days, I did say “Yes” when I should have said “No.” Now I feel so stupid for not being able to say “No,” despite knowing how to say so.

Always have something on your plate: I have noticed managers and executives get annoyed if somebody says, “We finished this task, and now we are waiting for the new one to be assigned.” On the other hand, if you say, “We finished this task, and now we are working on these other tasks while we wait for the new one to be assigned,” that gives a tremendous positive effect.

Every Cup Can Make a Difference

2010-04-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

I pity those who buy in to such stories. Does the second statement mean Starbucks doesn’t hedge in commodity market while acquiring coffee beans? Does Starbucks go directly to farmers of coffee growing countries to buy the beans? Hey! Wait a minute! Where did the farmers come from? Isn’t coffee a plantation crop? All the coffee planters that I happen to know are stinking rich. I wonder what “help farmers” proposition of Starbucks has got to do with.

The last statement is funny too. It’s like saying, “You save on a 10% discount.” You are indeed spending on 90% of the cost. So where does the saving come from?

An Experiment with Questioning

2010-04-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

I have enrolled to “Strategic Business Negotiations” class at my MBA program this quarter, and I am glad I did so. All these days I believed that a person got negotiating skills at birth, and that one cannot acquire them through systematic study, observation and practice. I was terribly wrong. Now I am convinced that by applying proper techniques and following certain simple rules, one could become a great negotiator.

The techniques that I am learning in the class are quite interesting. They are also fun to experiment with. One of the key requirements to negotiate is to learn how to influence. One can influence by asking right questions. A good sales person would sell stuff by asking a customer the right questions, and not by answering customer’s questions. I had an opportunity to try this out yesterday.

One of my friends ran into me yesterday and exclaimed with joy, "Hey, did you checkout that DSLR deal at Costco? The package also has an additional zoom lens, and it just costs about $700. I am gonna a buy it. What do you say?"

Under normal circumstances, knowing him well, I would have said, “$700 bucks? I don’t think you are going to get what you want. You are paying a big price too. You should seriously rethink about buying it.” If somebody gave me such an answer, my first impulse would be to reject his words. I would feel that that person was too biased to give such an outright opinion. It’s usual for any normal human to ignore such an advice. I am sure my friend would have dumped my advice in the drain had I said so. So I decided to experiment whether questioning technique really works. This is how our conversation went:

Me: It sounds like a great deal. Help me understand. Why are you buying a new camera?

Friend: Right now I have a 5 mega pixel, point and shoot camera. I don't get good pictures. If I turn off the flash, the pictures are dark, and when I turn it on, the photos are too bright. Over all, I feel I need to upgrade.

Me: Of course, you can control aperture, shutter speed and ISO with the DSLR. You can definitely aim for better quality pictures. Do you intend to learn how to use it in manual mode?

Friend: No, no way! All these cameras have an auto mode.

Me: Hmm. What about the zoom lens? Do you know how to use it? Does it have image stabilization?

Friend: Image Stabilization? What is it?

Me: When you shoot pictures by holding camera in hand, and using focal length, like 200mm, you need to set a fast shutter speed. If not, all your pictures get shaken. Or you need a tripod to avoid the shake. Or you use a lens that has image stabilization feature. That reduces the effect of handshakes.

Friend: Ah! I wasn’t aware of that.

Me: What about your concerns about flash? You are not buying external flash, are you?

Friend: No, the camera comes with an internal flash.

Me: How’s this different from the internal flash on a point and shoot?

Friend: I didn’t think about that…..

Me: To achieve your need you need an external flash with a diffuser, or a camera that has a bigger, and sensitive image sensor. DSLRs and point and shoots have same image sensors. Why do you think you should pay an extra $400 to $500 on this deal? Don’t you think you can satisfy your needs if you buy a point and shoot with the right sensor?

Friend: Ah!! You make me think… I guess, I should go for a new point and shoot. That makes my life a lot easy - I don’t have to carry this bulky camera everywhere. Dude, thanks a lot. You saved my $500. I am glad I asked you before I bought it.

The takeaway is - don't say, but make the other person say what you wanted to say

25 Years of .com

2010-03-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

It was on this day twenty five years ago that symbolics.com was registered as the first registered domain name. Symbolics, Inc. then used to be a computer manufacturer. The domain is now owned by an investment firm.

Check how many domains do you know from this list:

The first fifteen domain names registered (source: itif.org)

As you may notice, HP, IBM, Sun, Intel and others joined the bandwagon a year later. Here is an interesting paper on internet economy that one must read - The Internet Economy 25 Years After .Com. It also talks about the history of .com sites.

Religion, God and Cultural Diversity

2010-02-26T16:54:00.001-08:00

I am a big fan of cultural diversity at workplace. It brings in values and ideas from different cultures. It sometimes provides interesting situations too, like the one I had recently. A trivial conversation turned into a deep philosophical discussion, which finally drove everybody into utter confusion.

One of my colleagues, a European, candidly asked a question during lunch: “Do you follow a religion?” I could have said “Yes,” but “following a religion” has totally different connotation for him and me. Indian religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc. – are not really faith based. “Dharma,” the closest Sanskrit word for religion means, “a way of life set around moral values that allows a person to live in honor and dignity.” My friend was surprised that I took so long to answer such a simple question. All I need to say is “yes” or “no.” But how could I explain him my dilemma? After a long pause I said, “Yeah…. I do.”

“You believe in god?” he asked. My head went into a spin once again. I said, “Yes, I do,” and I should have stopped there, but I didn’t. I wanted to clarify my position to make it clear that my “yes” and his “yes” aren’t just same. So I continued, ”However, my definition of god could be quite different from that of yours.”

He instantly quipped, “So what’s your definition of god?”

How would I explain a person who has no knowledge of eastern philosophies the concept of Advaita? How would I get the gist of Ishavasya or Chandogya Upanishat, or Bhagawad Gita in a few sentences? Is there an “Advaita for Dummies” book that I can point him to? It took me many, many years to understand some of these concepts.

I thought for a while and answered, “There is a system of structure and force that transcends all matter in the universe. Everything – atoms, molecules, dust, rocks, trees, animals, you and me, earth and sun – is part of this system. In essence, you are part of this system and the system is part of you. We call this system “the god”. It is this force, or system, or god, that sets everything – matter and time – in motion.” At this point I looked at my friend. He had stopped eating, and was trying to digest what I had just said. I cursed myself for creating this confusion.

I ended my little unprepared discourse by joking, “This sounds more like quantum physics, right?”

My colleague replied, “It is as much confusing too. Ha ha ha.” Then we moved on to the next common topic.

This Year's Rain Season in California

2010-02-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

This year's rain season seems to never end. These are some of the pictures that I captured on my iPhone.

China is Messing Up with Google Because....

2010-01-19T14:39:00.002-08:00

One of my very good Chinese friends had posted something on facebook. I could not read it because it was all in Mandarin. So I translated it on http://translate.google.com. This was the translation:

"You which units? Temporary residence identity card? You speak for the party or for P people do? The government is playing a great mahjong, watching chess is not really a gentleman language do you understand? Gentlemen or not to tell ... See Moreyou shit ah? Lords Piaosu none of your young daughter what? Roll your mortgage is also home to drink Sanlu milk powder for your bar! Heart was not comfortable you can go fishing, you can go 70 yards, you can go Hurry & Scurry, you can go to push-ups, you can go to be jumping off buildings, it is boring You can also play soy sauce, so many things you can do to Replies insisted was just like Professor Sun Dongdong say, 99% are mentally ill! Here are the triad everywhere, it you are a good guy? If you're a good person if: People have been won, and how you have been pursued in other provinces? Someone was arrested and deputies can be elected, how do you nothing to be an imposter at university? Others rely on false papers, 29-year-old graduate can become a mayor, how do you learn into the returnees also jumped out? Corruption was sentenced to 400 million people for 12 years, how do you mistakenly take 170,000 to Pan Wuqi out? Others train all ..."

I am sure you all will agree with me that Google has to do a better job in translating Chinese to English. No wonder Chinese people are so much up against Google.

Earthquake on Facebook

2010-01-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

It was around 10 AM this morning. I was walking back to my desk after grabbing a cup of water when I heard a “thud” sound. I felt as if some heavy equipment fell on the floor. A mild shake followed soon after. Our building, being a seismo-retrofitted one, probably absorbed most of the shock. So I wasn’t really sure that that was an earthquake.

Some of my colleagues stood up in their cubicles expressing disbelief, anxiety and excitement – all together. Nobody was hundred percent sure that it was a quake. I went to my seat and opened US Geological Survey’s official website. The site wasn’t updated yet. Then I browsed couple of news sites. None had published any breaking news. I called my wife, but she wouldn’t pick the phone.

How would I confirm that it was really an earthquake? I logged in into facebook. Lo and behold! I could see more than ten tweets about earthquake. That’s the power of Social Networking. Would it be a crazy idea to detect earth quakes in urban areas based on twitter and facebook activity? US Geological Survey thinks it’s a great idea - http://ecopolitology.org/2010/01/07/usgs-develops-twitter-based-earthquake-detection-system/.

Before there’s a class action law suit, Twitter and Facebook should put a disclaimer saying, “If your house is on fire, stop tweeting and call 911.”

A Trip to Death Valley National Park

2010-01-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, my wife and I went on an escapade around California. Details are here: http://hkroshan.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html. We explored some parts of Death Valley National Park then. Last week we got a chance to visit the most beautiful place on the planet yet again. But this time we had an extra baggage - our one year old kid.

But for the Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park is not a very kid friendly park. Too many long distance drives put our little one into utter displeasure. We had no cell phone coverage through out the park. That caused a little anxiety in us, just in case we needed emergency services.

We will visit this park once again when our kid is big enough to camp in the Furnace Creek :-).

The Park Entrance

Highway 178

Highway 190 just before climbing the 5000ft mountain

Mosaic Canyon

Sand Dunes

Mountains during Sunset

Zabriskie Point

A few visitors enjoying the formations around Zabriskie Point

A Photography Enthusiast busy taking pictures

Bad Water Basin from Dante's View - I stitched three pictures to get the panoramic view

My New iPhone 3GS

2009-12-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

iPhone 3GS is my new toy. I can play with it for hours if not days. I haven't yet explored all the cool apps for iPhone. As far as iPhone 3GS's features are concerned, video camera and the voice recognition/recording are the ones that immediately caught my attention. The old one did not have them.

Without any doubt, it's the apps that make iPhone so cool. I found Bing search better than Google search. Facebook, Flickr, Pandora, Amazon, AIM, and Google Earth are some of the other ones that are good (and free). Unblock Me, Labyrinth, Paper Toss, Topple, Waterslide are some of the games that are free. I haven't explored many games yet. So far Unblock Me is my favorite.

Doodle Buddy is a collaborative painting app. It doesn't give too many coloring options. I experimented with some impressionism this morning. This painting is supposed to be a lighthouse, but it looks like a candle light. I could not do better, because brush size options were limited, and the view was too small.

Paper Napkin Games

2009-12-15T15:32:00.000-08:00

Team/group lunches or dinners provide a good opportunity for colleagues, friends, college classmates, etc., to network and learn more about others. Unless something bizarre happens, this is how such meetings proceed:

• Assemble at the table
• Browse the menu
• Order food
• Wait for the food to come. Some talk, some listen.
• Food arrives.
• Talkers talk while they eat; others listen and eat.
• Finish eating
• Pay the bill
• Disperse

At the end, everybody has had good time with lots of fun. That’s all good, but how can we make such gatherings more purposeful? In essence, how can we facilitate everybody to know more about each other, and still have fun? The answer is, we could paper-napkin games such as these:

1. Guess the lie...

Every person writes four statements about himself on a clean paper napkin (or a piece of paper). One of the statements is an intelligent lie. The statements should be such that it should be hard to guess which one is true, and which one is false.

Once everybody is ready with his statements, one person, who acts as the moderator, collects all the papers. The moderator randomly picks one paper at a time, first tells the name of the person and then reads the four statements aloud. After reading the four statements for each person, the moderator takes a hand poll vis-à-vis which statement is a lie.

2. Guess who it is…

Each person writes three things about himself (there’s no scope for lies here). After everybody is done with writing the three things, the moderator collects all the papers, reads the three things without telling the name of the person. Everybody guesses who the person is.

To add some confusion to the fun, the person who wrote those statements about himself could call others’ names too. Of course, the drawback of this game is that there will be only one person left out at the end.

I learned the first game from one of our professors in my MBA program. He conducted that game to demonstrate to us how difficult it is to judge a person. One of the persons in my team had the statement, “I have played pro basketball.” All of us judged that as a lie, but it turned out to be true.

The second game was played as part of a team building exercise by one of our customers on the east coast. I had the privilege of attending their breakfast team meeting.

Baylands Park, Sunnyvale

2009-12-11T14:20:00.001-08:00

Fall season arrives really late in the Bay Area. This is from Sunnyvale's Baylands Park - one of my favorite weekend getaways. It's a good park to fly kites - not so crowded as Mountain View's Shoreline Park.

Baylands Park, Sunnyvale, CA

User ID Tips

2009-12-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

I ran into this today while enrolling myself for a new service. I found the tips funny, especially the last one. For some, that may be the only way "to remember without writing it down."

--------------------------------------------------------
User ID Tips

Here are some tips for creating a user ID:

Choose a user ID that's easy for you to remember without writing it down.

If you choose a user ID that's already being used by someone else, make it unique by adding numbers, such as the year a significant event occurred.

Don't use the same information for both your user ID and your password.

Don't use your SSN as your user ID, and don't use your SSN as any part of your user ID.

Don't use vulgar or obscene language.

--------------------------------------------------------

Sky on iPhone

2009-11-09T16:42:00.000-08:00

My SLR is too big to be carried wherever I go. So what? I have my iPhone. I have noticed that clouds look really nice on iPhone camera.

Birds

Trail of a jet

Can you find the tiny aeroplane in the middle of the clouds?

Marketing Puzzle of New Media Entertainment Companies

2009-10-28T17:15:00.001-07:00

Monetization seems to be the greatest puzzle the new media companies are trying to solve today. I have been watching many new media companies that come and go, just like a cool breeze. Those who survive now are struggling to find a way to make money. When I say “new media companies”, I refer to companies that offer video entertainment that don’t fall in the traditional category – mass media, cable television, cable video on demand, DVD, and so on. WebTV, IPTV, Flash streaming, etc., fall under the new media category.

In a broad sense (in terms of marketing jargon), this is a classic segmentation-targeting-positioning problem. The new media companies either focus too much on the features they build, or the quantity of content they offer. They very easily overlook “who” values the features and contents they offer.

Solution to any marketing problem first starts with “who.” Then it moves on to “what, how, where, when, if, then, else, but,” and other stuff. Marketing gurus call such problem solving analytical methods with crazy acronyms like 5Cs, 4Ps... Now the question is, can we apply the traditional marketing analysis to the new media? A traditional marketing professional would say, “sure.” However a new media evangelist would say, “Naaahhhh! This is new media, nobody knows what’s right.” I agree with the former.

My handwritten notes on how to solve the marketing puzzle

Let’s divide the solution into three parts – Who, How and What. Under who, we specify broad customer segments, or small niche ones. Under “What” we classify the content pool or individual segments. “How” tells us how a content reaches the customer segment that finds value in it.

For a working entertainment business model, one should be able to draw a contiguous line from Who to What via How. Contiguous line is necessary for the business model to work, but not sufficient to be successful. To be successful:

• Targeted segments “who” should be able to reach out to “what” with at most ease. If a customer has to look for his/her choice of content in a jungle, it makes no sense.
• Targeted segments should see a value in price associated with the solution that’s shown under “How”.
• The new media companies should deploy services and channels (how) that bring content (what) to targeted segments (who) at lightning speed.

For example, John Wayne fans today may watch Wild Wild West kind of movies on their television by playing a DVD. That completes the line. The fans are so sophisticated that they want to watch good quality content on a medium sized screen. We cannot sell them their valued content on PC or iPod today. Reason – quality. If you have a solution that helps John Wayne fans to easily get the content they want (High definition Wild Wild West), and in the way how they want (TV, broadband, TV connected to broadband or set top box) that’s going to be a hit.

San Jose Mercury News Customer Service - Same Old Story

2009-10-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

A repeat story of 2008 - http://hkroshan.blogspot.com/2008/05/amusing-moments-with-customer-service.html. San Jose Mercury News showed up at my door few days ago without any advance notice. I assumed that the newsboy had mistakenly delivered it. Then I saw it again the next morning. I smelled something fishy. The next three days, I got the news paper every morning, and to my annoyance I got a bill mailed to my address yesterday. Of course, the bill had a name of an alien person who had no connection with my address. Why does it always happen with San Jose Mercury News and not Wall Street Journal!

Payment Notice.
(Note that they ask you to call 1-800-870-NEWS if the information is incorrect, but they won't say they are going to fix your problem.

The first thing I did this morning was to call the customer service. The customer service representative couldn’t fix the problem unless and until he had my name and phone number, both of which I refused to disclose. Result - the person who took the call abruptly hung the phone.

I called again. The second person asked for the same set of personal information, which I refused to say. (Yeah! I was determined this time not to give up!) She went one step ahead and told me that I would get the news paper at my door until their real customer called them. I said that was unacceptable. She hung the phone on my face.

I called yet again. When the third service representative took the call, I told her, “This is the third time I am calling this number. The two other customer support folks hung up. I want to know if you can fix my problem. If you can’t I want you to escalate it to your boss.”

The person on the other side seemed to be very patient. My appeal, arrogance and displeasure had little or no effect on her. It was, after all, just another call for her. The sky was not going fall on her, anyways. She took her own time to respond to me. After a long pause, she asked for my phone number, name and address. She wasn’t impressed at all when I told her, “I haven’t subscribed for your news paper. You won’t have my name or number in your records. I can give you my address, and I want the news paper to stop from showing up every morning.” All she replied was, “Then sorry sir. I cannot help you.” I said to her, “As I requested earlier, could you please escalate my call to your manager?” She reluctantly did so.

I explained my situation to the manager. This was the fourth time I was telling the same story – that I didn’t subscribe to the news paper, but I see it at my door, and that I don’t like it.

“Sir, can I verify your name, address and phone number?”

“Here is my address ..... I just said I am not your subscriber. How would you have my name and phone number in your system?”

“OK, Sir. I have your address. But I want your name to go into our records. Else we won’t be able to fix it.”

“Why should I disclose my personal information? How can you pull my personal information when I don’t want to give it to you? I don’t want you guys to use it for any future promotions”

“OK, Sir. I understand you are not the right customer. But does it hurt you to get the news paper free at your door?”

“It’s a piece of garbage for me. I won’t mind getting it if you could get somebody to pick it up from my door every morning! I am really annoyed by this. I want this to stop NOW!!!!!”

“All right Sir. We will try to cancel it.”

Why do news papers play dirty tricks on the people in order to keep their head count?

A Tribute to Norman Borlaug

2009-09-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

The chart of the yield of wheat in developing countries looks so amazing. One person who deserves the credit for this is Norman Borlaug. It’s sad that he passed away over the weekend. The world, especially India and Pakistan, seemed to have forgotten this great soul. But for him the “Green Revolution” in the 60s and 70s would not have been possible. His obituary must have been frontline headline news all over the world, but not much was said about him.

His biography found at these links inspires everybody:
http://www.worldfoodprize.org/borlaug/borlaug-history.htm
http://www.rockfound.org/library/98borlaug.pdf

India and Pakistan not only fought a war during 1965, but also fought a stiff competition in acquiring Borlaug’s limited stock of high yield variety of wheat from Mexico. Exporting out of Mexico via United States on the sea route ran into trouble because of Mexican border patrol and US customs. It is said India chartered Boeing 707s to import 16 thousand metric tons of wheat from Mexico before Pakistan did. Meanwhile a misspelling in Pakistan’s check delayed their shipment. Borlaug and his team members in India and Pakistan are said to have literally worked close to the battlegrounds where the war was fought. Despite all the hurdles and skirmishes, both India and Pakistan became self sufficient in food production towards the end of 60s and Borlaug was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his outstanding work in India and Pakistan in the year 1970.

It is interesting to note that Borlaug, an American, did all his work in developing countries during a period that saw a boom in American economy. That means he could have possibly found a good job in the US, and lead a comfortable life. But he chose otherwise. Environmentalists opposed his idea of intensive cultivation that used genetically modified plants and inorganic fertilizers. This is what he had to say to them – “Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”

What can we learn from this great personality?

• Have a core purpose in life, make it a vision and execute it – Borlaug’s core purpose was to eliminate hunger. He did his best by helping produce more food.

• Prepare to sacrifice – Borlaug gave up the comfortable life and worked hard in the fields in rural areas of developing countries where the amenities weren’t that good.

• Think about how you can use your knowledge, talent and creativity to solve a world problem – Borlaug was an expert in plant pathology and genetic sciences. He applied it effectively to cultivate high yielding varieties.

• Have team of people that follows you and you lead them – Borlaug had teams of students and partners in the scientific community to help him. He could not have done the green revolution alone. M.S. Swaminathan is one such scientist in Borlaug’s team who carried along his ideas and experiments in India.

• It’s OK not to get recognition. Just focus on your job – Even though Borlaug received Nobel prize in 1970, he did not get the recognition that he rightly deserved in his home country. He got US Congressional Medal in 2006. Shouldn’t he have gotten it in the 70s?

• There are always hurdles to your plans. Have a strategy to deal with them – Environmentalists lobbied against his revolutionary ideas. As a result his dream of setting a Green Revolution in Africa drew flak from Rockefeller and Ford foundations. However, he did continue his project with other anthropologists like Sasakawa and Jimmy Carter.

Spirit of the New Workplace - An MBA Course

2009-08-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

I had never imagined that I would do yoga, learn how to meditate, write a haiku, talk about spirituality, taste raisins, play with Lego toys and direct a skit – all in one MBA course. Nor did I ever think that I would rediscover my forefathers’ philosophical thoughts about life, self, and the world in a western business school. Despite all the fun, and the twists, I did learn a lot in the course: Spirit of the New Workplace.

The purpose of the class was to help students understand the connection between life and work, work and organization, and organization and life. And then apply this understanding into building organizations that are sustainable. We also did a few case studies on companies that applied the principles of living organizations.

The course was structured around fun and creativity. I didn’t realize I was learning some serious concepts until I did some introspection after the class.

Some activities:

Describing the perfect day in colors: Six teams of about six people in each team described a perfect day on an A3 sized white paper by painting and pasting color papers. The art work on the A3 sized sheet was meant to tell a story. Interestingly, every team had a sun and a beach on the paper. The professor, who has been running this course for almost seven years, said almost every team had a sun on the art work. Doesn’t that imply that we, human beings, love natural light?

Lego building: Six new teams of about six people, this time, built a living company using the Lego building set. Though each one of us in the team at first felt it was a difficult task to achieve, ideas evolved, and creativity spurned. Within 20 minutes we did a descent job of building an office with trees, people, and automobiles around.

Haiku: I really enjoyed this assignment. A 5-7-5 Haiku on “Nature” or “Work” (5-7-5 means the first line and the third line have 5 syllables, and the second line has 7 syllables) was what we were supposed to compose. This was my haiku:

High I go flying
Dams and roads and mines I find
Where is my nature?

This is how you break into syllables:

High–I–go–fly-ing
Dams–and-roads-and-mines-I-find
Where-is-my-na-ture

Yoga: Fortunately, we had a professional yoga instructor in the class. She made all of us do various aasanas for an hour and fifteen minutes. I was literally crippled for the next two days, for not being able to move any part of my body. That shows how lazy I have been these days.

Skit: The class was divided into six groups for the final presentation. Our group decided to do the skit. We did a silent musical about work life balance. I wish I could record it on a video. The skit came out really well. I thoroughly enjoyed my part of writing and directing the show.

Interesting quotes/notes from the class:

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we aim at perfection, we get excellence.”

“It is not what the vision is, but what the vision does.”

Exercise of five “why”s. You do this to find the core purpose of your company or yourself. For example you can ask yourself why five times:
1. Why do you go to work? – To get money.
2. Why do you need money? – For financial freedom.
3. Why do you need financial freedom? – So that I can spend educating the poor
4. Why do you want to spend on education? - That will elevate their quality of life
5. Why do you want to elevate their quality of life? – I want to build a society where all are equal and all lead a life of dignity.
The last answer will be the core purpose of your life.

This is the gist of takeaways after I did an introspection about the class(may sound deep, philosophical and complex :-)):

1. About life: Life revolves around Identity. Core values and core purpose give life its identity.

2. About yourself: You manage your life, energy, mind, and body. Be mindful about what you do. Live in your present.

3. About organization: An organization is a living entity, not a machine. It has core values and purpose. The organization lives as long as its core values and core purpose are not compromised.

4. About you and organization: If you are part of an organization, you do your best to manage the organization’s life, energy and mind. You are part of the organization and organization is part of you. (This reminds me of Ishopanishat - Ishavasyamidam sarvam yatkincha jagatyam jagat – Whatever is there in the universe and the universe itself is God).

Upside Down Laptop Screen

2009-08-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

Our nine month old son is so fond of laptop that he doesn’t miss even a single opportunity to reach out his little fingers on its keypad. It’s hard to guess what to expect on the monitor screen as he goes crazy tapping the keys. Sometimes he closes the open windows, and sometimes he minimizes them. He often pops up windows that are rarely known to an average PC user. When we are not so lucky, he just deletes data on a Word document or a Notepad text.

But the weirdest thing that has happened to our PC as a result of our son’s keyboard tapping is the screen getting upside down. My wife was browsing on the internet when our little boy caught her off guard and hit a few key strokes before my wife could pull the laptop away from him. It was too late, though. “Roshan!!!!!!!!!!, ” she yelled, “Look at this….What do we do now?” I looked at the screen, and said, “What? How could this happen?”

The laptop was unusable. If I moved the mouse cursor towards top right using the touch panel, the cursor would move left bottom. With much difficulty we managed to open the Google page. We searched for “dell laptop screen inverted.” We were not the first ones to run into this problem. “Yahoo Answers” had the solution. Bingo! It worked – ctrl + alt + up-arrow got the screen back in order.

Why, in the first place, did our laptop makers introduce this feature? Why would somebody need a screen upside down?

Loop of Innovation

2009-08-07T19:03:00.001-07:00

This is my handwritten note on what it takes to build a software product. If you are developing one, view your product from all dimensions and make sure you close the loop. Also bear in mind that the loop starts and ends with the "Users" or "Consumers." What technology you develop, what process you follow, and what patents you hold are of no use if you don't satisfy the user needs.

Loop of Innovation

How $8 Annoyed Me

2009-07-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

I ran into an old friend, VT, yesterday after ten years. I shouted at him, “Hey V! How have you been? What a surprise to see you here.”

VT looked at me astounded and dumbfounded, “I am sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

“Don’t remember me? I am Roshan. You and I worked together on the same project at …” I told him the names of other team members. He started faintly getting memory back to order. Then suddenly the bell rang. “Oh! Ya! Roshan!! Hey! Kaise ho yaar? (How are you, dude?).” He was so happy to meet one of his buddies after many years.

We chatted for a while. Before bidding good bye he said, “It has been so long. Sorry that I could not recognize you. I am slowly forgetting our good old days. It’s so nice of you that you remember me. But how could you remember me, dude? I am amazed.”

I casually answered, “How can I forget those days!” Then I asked him looking at his eyes after a brief pause, “Did you really forget me?” I did not mean to make him feel sorry, but he felt sorry once again and apologized that he didn’t remember too much. I felt kind of relieved when I heard that.

VT and I worked in the same team on a short project in India. After that, he and I came to US on different projects, though we both worked for the same company. It was during the year 1999, and my first visit to US. I was supposed to stay in the US for about three months. My main goal during that visit was to save as many Dollars as possible and take them back home. Then $1 had a conversion rate of Rs.40. Rs. 40 in India had much more buying power than $1 in US. So I had a tendency of converting every Dollar price to Rupees.

VT had borrowed $8 from me for lunch one day. I vividly remember how annoyed and frustrated I felt the next two days when he did not repay my money. Before this incident I had never asked anybody to give my money back. So I didn’t know how to ask him. I spent quite some time thinking, “Should I ask? Or shouldn’t I?” Finally I was convinced that this was an extraordinary situation, because the amount in question was high - $8 = Rs.320. Then Rs.320 in India would have fetched me 15 lunches in a restaurant. With much difficulty and determination I reminded VT of $8 that he owed me. Unfortunately he had no cash, and promised to repay me the next day. I persisted upon him the next day too (though my inner conscience constantly told me not to bother about it). Yet again, he had no cash, but he expressed sorry and borrowed $8 from another colleague to repay me.

May be he did not mind, but I felt so cheap and embarrassed by that incident. I did not meet VT again, but the incident kept haunting me all these days. In fact, that was the first and the last time I have persisted upon somebody to give back my money.

How Why What

2009-07-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

I was researching on term lists, and search engine type-aheads (all work related). I stumbled upon to find what Google and Yahoo folks have done for type-aheads. Yahoo calls the feature "Search Assist." My thoughts drifted away from my original research, and I started playing with the type-aheads. Google and Yahoo, I believe, suggest the most popular search phrases that contain the word you type in. Therefore we could say these suggestions suggest what the netizens are worried about. Some of the suggestions are TV shows, movie names or starting lyrics of a song. Many are real questions, and they are all hilarious.

"HOW"

Interestingly "How to tie a tie" is the first recommendation for how! It's not 'how to fix the world,' nor 'how to fix the economy.' If tying a tie is so difficult, why tie a tie? I don't know what to say about people searching the internet to learn how to kiss or how to flirt! Yahoo suggests 'how sunspots affect earth.' Why? Are there so many net surfers who are worried about sunspots?

Google:
how to tie a tie
how i met your mother
how to kiss
how to get pregnant
how stuff works
how to
how to lose weight
how to make a website
how to write a resume
how do you sleep lyrics

Yahoo:
how to tie a tie
how stuff works
how much money tiger makes
how to lower property taxes
how to read body language
how to lose weight
how many more potter films
how to write a resume
how sunspots affect earth
how to flirt

"WHAT"

Ha.Ha. People ask Google and Yahoo 'what time is it!' Don't all PCs come with a time bar at the bottom or at the top? 'What not to wear' and 'what is love' shows up on both Google and Yahoo. Well, 'What not to wear' happens to be a TV show. My winner is Yahoo's 'what to eat for a flat tummy?' Is 'Don't eat' not the right answer?

Google:
what is twitter
what is my ip
what not to wear
what does my name mean
what is my ip address
what time is it
what time is the inauguration
what i like about you
what is love
what is a good credit score

Yahoo:
what to eat for a flat tummy
what not to wear
what is love
what car
what is my ip
what time is it
now that's what i call music
what about brian
what do dreams mean
you are what you eat

"WHY"

There are two questions on men. Hmmm. If one looks at the questions below, it seems like women ask 'why' more than men. My winner is "Why do the dogs eat poop?" They eat because they are dogs!

Google:
why is the sky blue
why do men have nipples
why did the chicken cross the road
why do cats purr
why men cheat
why did chris brown with rihanna
why did chris brown beat up rihanna
why do dogs eat poop
why did i get married

Yahoo:
why easter date is early
why optical illusions work
why why love
why is the dollar weak
why do people cry
why do cats knead paws
why did i get married
why we get fevers
why is the sky blue
why is friday the 13th considered unlucky

Walmart Irony

2009-06-28T14:47:00.001-07:00

These watermelons were put on display outside the Walmart store today. What amused me was the printout pasted on the basket that said "Product of USA." Just out of curiosity I picked items at random inside the store. Guess what... I could not find even a single item that was made in USA. I am wondering who Walmart is trying to fool by pasting this sticker?

Nevermind, people who shop at Walmart don't care about where the product is from. "Unbeatable Prices" and "$4.50" are the only two things that catch their attention.

Subtle Pictures of Golden Gate Bridge

2009-06-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

View of the magnificent bridge that we are all familiar with

Complex policies for pedestrians and bicyclists

Extra service for bicyclists. Gates are closed to pedestrians in order to prevent suicides. As though people on bicycles don't jump from the bridge :-)

Will a depressed person who is not in a position to understand the purpose of life read this sign and pick up the phone?

Sodium Vapor Lamp

Door to the top of the bridge. Of course, it's closed for public

Height of the bridge

These rivets have held the bridge steady since 1930s. The bridge has 1,200,000 of them.

San Francisco Downtown

Why is "Prepare to stop" in bold, italics and rest of them not?

A light pole

The bars on the side rails

Alcatraz Island

A view from the side

Quiz: What's the color of Golden Gate Bridge?
Clue: It's a shade of orange

Practice, Practice, Practice

2009-06-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

I completed my sixth quarter at business school yesterday. I still have a long way to go to finish my MBA. I had two courses this – 1. Sales Management, 2. Investments. Each course was interesting in its own way. Both courses stressed upon too many do’s and don’ts. They both had a common mantra - practice, practice, practice. It takes a great deal of practice to be either a good sales person, or a successful investor.

Some of the takeaways from the courses:

Sales Management:

• “Questioning” is the key element to becoming a good sales person (or an influencer, or a negotiator). Proper questioning gives you the control over a conversation.

• Good communicator is the one who listens, not one who talks.

• Objections from customers are good. Just learn how to manage them. No opinion is bad.

• During the first interaction with a potential customer, either in person or on phone, the first 10 seconds matter the most. How you manage first 10 seconds will either put you in or throw you out.

• Practice questioning.

Practice, practice, practice.

Investments:

• Buffett’s two point advice: 1. Don’t lose money. 2. Don’t forget 1’st rule.

• Conventional wisdom is not wisdom, just like Hot Dog is not a dog.

• A real dumb person is dumb twice. First for the fact that he is dumb. Second because he doesn’t know he is dumb. A dumb person who knows he is dumb is wise, though not intelligent.

• Wisdom covers the downside of investment. Intelligence adds to upside. Intelligence with no wisdom is dangerous, as it doesn’t cover bottom. It may make you a broke.

• If you need high reward, be prepared for high loss.

• Speculation is gambling, not investment.

• Proper stock selection and proper timing will reduce the risk of investment, and enhance the return on investment. Practice analyzing companies, financial statements, economic indicators, future prospects.

Practice, practice, practice.

Tetris Turns 25

2009-06-02T13:33:00.001-07:00

Bricks would drop from the top, and I would struggle to fit them in the slots below. Very soon I would get frustrated and wake up from the bed, later realizing that I was just hallucinating. That's called the Tetris Effect. It happened to me quite often about fifteen years ago when my brother and I played Tetris many, many hours every day. The game was so addictive! My wife is still a big fan of the game.

Screenshot of Tetris. Courtesy: Wikipedia

Interestingly, Tetris turned 25 today. Alexey Pajitnov, a Russian scientist developed the game 25 years ago on Electronika 60, a copy cat of PDP11. However, we played the game on X86 (DOS and Windows 3.1). Don't miss the photo gallery at this link (thanks to Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2009/jun/02/games-computing-tetris?picture=348218241.

Screenshot of Pac-man. Courtesy: Wikipedia

The other that makes me nostalgic is Pac-man. This was another game that would eat my brains in the middle of the midnight.

Parallel Parking

2009-05-28T15:41:00.001-07:00

This was the only parking space available to me yesterday. I had less than a foot both at the back and at the front. Nothing's impossible!

Revenue Generating Model for Internet Video Services

2009-05-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

Emergence of the new media has created a heck lot of confusion in the internet. I wonder if anybody has a clear idea of how to monetize the content, brand, subscriber reach. Youtube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are strong brands, yet they don’t have proper plan in place for a revenue stream.

Video over internet is much hyped upon these days. Is there a video-over-internet that has made good profit so far? I don’t think so. It certainly requires out-of-the-box thinking to envision a revenue generating business model for next generation video.

What are the monetizing challenges for emerging media service providers? Let’s first understand the players who depend on the service – content providers, consumers, and advertisers. These three players are the only sources of revenue for a service provider. Why, when and how would the players spend money in favor of service providers? Anybody who solves this problem will be a millionaire overnight. I don’t claim to have solved the problem. Nevertheless, here are my thoughts -

Content Providers

Content Providers would spend to host their content if

1. $x spent on hosting the content gets them $mx in return where m > 1, and $mx + $ny > $y, where $y is the revenue the content providers would earn had they not to hosted the content, and n is the cannibalization factor and n < 1. An example of cannibalization effect - internet release of a popular movie may eat up its DVD revenue.

2. $x spent on hosting the content on internet would save $y in operation expenses, where $y > $x. For example, products that rely on do-it-yourself (DIY) may reduce the cost incurred by customer support calls if they host video on how to do-it-yourself. In this case, the product manufacturers themselves are content providers.

3. Making the content easily available to public provides unique intangible value to the content provider. Many non-profit organizations, government agencies, and institutions fall under this segment.

4. Hosting content increases their brand recognition.

Consumers

The big question here is why would the consumers spend for watching video over internet if they can get them for free through other channels (Youtube, probably). Any consumer would be willing to spend if he/she gets a unique value for the service. To create a unique value, the service provider must target a niche market, and host selected pieces of content that are highly valued by the targeted segment. Examples of niche market: Boxing sport fans wanting to watch professional bouts, immigrant population wanting to watch select television/movie channels of their country of origin, deeply religious boomers wanting to watch select programs of the church or religious institution they go to, and so on.

Consumers of niche market are usually diehard fans of the activities they are involved with. Such consumers would be ready to spend extra bucks for the value they get from the service. Without a niche market and with no content available to satisfy the needs of the niche market, it’s hard to make money.

A service provider can provide two types of offerings to the consumers –

1. Pay as you watch – Electronic Sell Through (EST) and Pay Per View (PPV) are the options. However, the price should be low enough to provoke impulsive buying. Service provider must be smart enough to grab consumer’s interest over a long period of time. One way of achieving this is – do not host all the content all at once. Instead, slate the release in regular intervals – may be weekly. In other words, there should be an ongoing release process with new content in the pipeline.

2. Subscription – Subscription guarantees steady cash flow. Service Providers love it. It enables consumer loyalty. On the flip side, it may have lower returns compared to ‘pay as you watch’.

Advertisers

Most of the current video sites depend on advertisement based revenue model. This model has been highly successful with the analog media industry. Why isn’t it working with the new technology? One answer is “fragmentation.” Youtube, for example, has so much content, and so many viewers.

How to target advertisements? Should the target be based on the viewing behavior of the consumers or the content type? What’s the Cost of 1000 impressions (CPM) and what value are advertisers going to get? CPM for most of the current video sites are too high compared to the value the advertisements generate. If any content service provider can reverse the equation, then we have an advertisement based business model that can yield positive cash flow.

Accent Cracking

2009-05-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

I wish I could put some audio on this blog. This stuff amuses me. I have no reservations with English accents. Every culture, and for that matter every person, has every right to have a unique accent. However, for reasons whatsoever, it blows me out of my chair when an Indian tries to catch American accent. I’ve had occasions where I have spilled all the coffee in my hand out of laughter.

Recently I heard one guy talking on his cell phone. He said, “I felt chomphleeetely (completely) screwed vhen (when) I got his khaal (call) today morning…. Oh my gaaad (god)!…. I chan’t ('a' pronounced as in 'can') undershtand (understand) why he was cribbing so much…..”

Notice –

c and p are pronounced hard (what we call mahaprana in Indian languages)
t is hard if it starts at the beginning of the word, but is pronounced close to d if it is towards the end – eighty is pronounced eighdy
r is said by pulling the tongue backwards
w is hardly pronounced as w – it is mistaken for v
o is pronounced as aa for box, god, etc….
“this morning” is “today morning”
“whining” is “cribbing”

Our folks are indeed good at observing American pronunciations. The sad part has got to do with the imitation. One could say my ears are prejudiced, but I swear I don’t hear real American tones from Indians who try to imitate them.

How I speak English? I speak the same way I have been doing right from my childhood. Soft tones for c, p, t; “fast, past, ask” with ‘a’ as in “car”; “god, odd, box” with ‘o’ as in “form”, and so on.

Not that I haven’t changed at all. I now say ‘skedule’ for schedule. Earlier I said “shedule.”

Chennai's Bizzare Train Accident

2009-04-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

I feel sorry for those who died. The train mishap in Chennai turns out to be a jumbo puzzle. See here: http://www.mypopkorn.com/news/chennai-train-accident-lalu-prasad-orders-probe.html.

1. Is it so easy for an unidentified person to run an electric train? Doesn’t running a train require some training?

2. If the passenger train was empty, and the other train was a goods train, how can 4 (some news papers say 6) die, and 11 get injured?

3. Why a special team from Bangalore is ordered to probe the incident? Are there no experts in Chennai to conduct the probe? Chennai has better rail network, and Southern Railways is headquartered there.

4. On a lighter note, what are the chances that the unidentified person who drove the train is not from Bihar?

Weekend Trip to Yosemite

2009-04-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

For the first time, we ventured out on a long drive with our 5 month old son. What place better than Yosemite could there be during this time of the year? Our trip was smooth, but for our little one’s cranky yelling for the last hour of our return journey.

On Saturday we reached the valley in the afternoon. The view of the monster rocks was just magnificent. Bridalveil Fall was our first stop. But we did not get down the car. Reason – the baby was sound asleep. We lacked the will to forcefully wake him up. After a slow long drive through the detours and traffic jams we reached Curry Village.

Half Dome

El Capitan

From our past experience we knew that the best way to get around the valley was to park our car and ride the free shuttle. So we parked our car at the public parking lot near Curry Village. Then, guess what. Our son showed no signs of getting up. We got thoroughly confused. What should we do now? Wake him up or not? How should we handle a sleeping baby? My Dad opposed the idea of disturbing his grandson’s sound sleep. After some debate over whether to walk to Mirror Lake with our baby in the stroller, or take the bus, we resolved to take stroller and the bus. Fortunately, the shuttles were designed to take strollers and wheelchairs.

In the process of boarding the bus our son woke up, but he made no fuss. He looked around noticing strange windows and uncommon jerks. We felt lucky that he was quiet all through the ride. Mirror Lake was at its best. My wife and I wanted to get a personal photograph along with the reflection. There was a small crowd of people who would not move away from our frame whatsoever. My Dad had a hard time eliminating them from the camera frame. Finally, when it was about to get dark, those folks left the place.

Around 7:30 in the evening we felt like eating pizza at the Curry Village. I was able to get to the counter to place the order after a half an hour wait in the line. The wait time for the pizza was another 40 minutes. The person at the counter took my order and gave me a buzzer, which would buzz when the pizza was ready. The buzzer buzzed exactly after 40 minutes. I held my flickering buzzer in my hand and made through the folks crowding near the take-out window. Even though everybody stared at me, nobody said a word. When I placed my buzzer at the counter, the guy inside the counter asked me to stand in the line behind the crowd to pick the order! Then I looked around. Everyone had a sense of relief. I apologized and moved to the end. It took another 15 minutes to get my pizza.

Yosemite Falls

Bridalveil Fall

Lower Yosemite Fall

Later that night we drove through the winding Route 140 and checked in into Cedar Lodge at El Portal. The hotel was quite decent. We also got a bassinet for our baby. The next day, Sunday, we were delighted to see the gorgeous Merced River flowing all along Route 140. It was so dark the previous night that we did not notice the river at all.

Merced River on Route 140

We were less confused on the second day. We knew exactly where to take breaks, and how to handle the baby when he is asleep. Breidalveil and Yosemite falls were wonderful. We loved our quite time near Sentinal Beach. We drove along Route 140 on our return journey. I hadn’t taken that route earlier. The road runs right next to Merced River. Pink, yellow, blue, purple flowers on the banks added to the beauty of the white roaring river.

Restaurant Service during Recession

2009-04-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Restaurants are first in the line to get hit during an economy slowdown. I can’t escape noticing so many empty tables these days in the restaurants, which I myself don’t go as often as I did before. During such a time it is natural that we expect the services in the restaurants to be better than usual. It is good for the business to motivate customers to visit again. However, in reality, I experienced something opposite.

Last week I met with some of my old buddies at an Italian restaurant. The waiter who attended our table didn’t even have a dint of smile on his face. He took our order and vanished into vacuum. This particular restaurant offers complimentary bread as a starter to all its visitors. I was hungry, and so were my friends. We looked around and around. There was no sign of the bread, nor that of the waiter. Our frustration went double fold when we noticed one of the far away tables being served with the bread. “How can they get the bread, though they came here after us?” Rather than talking our regular stuff, we got sidetracked by the poor service. We spent rest of our time cursing the waiter.

After making us wait for quite a long time, the waiter appeared out of blue holding our main dishes. When my friend asked him about the complimentary bread, he just said, “Oh! I forgot.” His expression conveyed, “Hey, what’s the big deal? People sometimes forget. So, what?” He didn’t even apologize for the sake of it.

Today we went out on a company lunch for a Mexican restaurant. There was hardly any crowd other than our company folks. From their body language, I felt the waitresses weren’t too motivated. One of them almost forgot to take my order. I had to literally call her back to give my order. When I asked for a glass of water to the other waitress, I didn’t get it until I reminded her again.

Lesser number of visitors means lower tips. I guess this is the real demotivating factor for the employees. How can the restaurant owners motivate the employees when the business itself is cash crunched....?

Mild Earthquake in San Jose Area

2009-03-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

The ground near my office shakes when people walk briskly. A short while ago it shook longer than usual. I didn't sense anybody walking. I jumped out of my chair to check what it is. So did some of my coworkers. It was a mild earthquake! I called my wife. She too felt the tremors.

(Courtesy: http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm)

Where do you spend your time?

2009-03-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

With so many choices around:

Internet – emails, news, chat, discussions, blogs, facebook, Youtube,...
Mobile phone – conversing, text messaging,...
Game consoles – Playstation, Xbox, Wii,...
Television – shows, movies, soaps, sports, news,...
Sports and Outdoors – playing, hiking, working out,...
Parties and other outings – lunch, dinner, partying, shopping,...
Reading – books, magazines,...
And many more...

Where do you spend time to entertain yourself?

The time spent on Internet, game consoles, mobile phones was miniscule a decade ago. These options didn’t exist two decades ago. Imagine how difficult it is for consumer businesses to compete for people’s time and attention.

Welcome Spring

2009-03-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

I took some time off today to shoot these flowers. I was lucky to get some good ones.

Macroeconomics, A Love Story

2009-03-13T18:14:00.001-07:00

I am getting too fascinated about Macroeconomics these days. Don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about the global economic impact, which is, without any doubt, depressing. I am referring to the Macroeconomic models that explain supply, demand, GDP, interest rates, unemployment, etc. How I got into it? Well, I enrolled for a Macroeconomics course in my MBA program.

I was clueless during the first month of the course. Our professor dumped too many ideas on us. It was really tough to digest them all at once – AS-AD curve, IS-LM curve, Neo-classical model, Keynesian model, and so on. One fine morning I realized the whole Macroeconomic theory boils down to what makes the curves shift, and how to shift them(during recession) or hold them(during steady growth). Thereafter it was all a love story. Literally!

Not so long ago there lived a cool guy, Mr. Cool. He fell in deep love with Ms. Sexy. They dated for four long years. The lovers had the best days of their lives. The world looked so beautiful. Everything was just perfect. They danced, sang, and laughed together.

One day Mr. Cool asked Ms. Sexy, “Will you marry me?” Ms. Sexy didn’t have many words to say. She answered, “No.” Mr. Cool’s dreams got dashed. He lost his cool, and put his life into deep turmoil. It took a while for him to recover.

Now Mr. Cool stepped out in search for a new girl friend. But his hope didn’t last long. He could not find any girl who was willing to get into a relationship. This explains the problem of ‘supply.’

Mr. Cool was unfortunate. But his misery didn’t end there. He later realized he was one among many single cool guys looking for a partner. This is the problem of ‘demand.’

Now replace Mr. Cool, and Ms. Sexy with consumers and goods, firms and banks, money demand and money supply, savings and money. It’s the same story.

Palm Trees

2009-03-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

My Brother's this picture: <click here> inspired me to take this one

Wonderful Zen Allegories

2009-01-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

I will carry the delight of experiencing this enlightenment for rest of my life. Our Professor of Marketing Strategy course explained how a project proposal should look like. And, he illustrated it like nobody else had done before.

Just to give a background, the course requires us to work on a project that repositions a product in the market. We need to submit a project proposal and get the professor’s approval before we actually start the work. Now the question – How should we write a proposal? Our professor, being a Chinese, gave a wonderful Zen twist. He explained:

“The proposal should look like this – Imagine your self in Alaska in summer. There are mountains all around. The atmosphere is serene. The wind is cool and pleasant. The sky is blue. While you read the proposal, you should feel like you are hiking with your love alongside a beautiful creek in Alaska. You go on appreciating everything around you – What a beautiful mountain! What a beautiful sky!... Then suddenly you come across a big gorgeous blue lake and say, ‘WOW’. The creek is the content of your analysis in the proposal and the lake is your problem definition.”

I felt, “Wow!” What a nice way to explain such a simple problem. This reminds me another inspiring Zen story.

Nan-in was a popular Buddhist monk in Japan during 1800s. A scholar approached Nan-in to learn more about Zen. As a courtesy, Nan-in offered tea to the scholar. The scholar held the tea cup in his hand, and Nan-in poured the tea. The monk continued didn’t stop pouring tea into the cup even after the cup was full. The tea, obviously, spilled out.

The scholar cried, “Stop, my cup is full.”

Nan-in stopped pouring and said, “Your mind is like your tea cup. It is full. How can it take new ideas from me?”

Chandamama

2009-01-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

I shot this picture this evening. It was a perfect time to capture the moon. I shot this on my Canon Rebel xsi and 300mm lens. I set ISO 100, shutter speed 1/60, aperture f13. Then, of course, I cropped the image using GIMP.

Chandamama is the kids' favorite nickname for moon in India. It literally translates to "Uncle Moon".

Good Bye Mervyn's

2009-01-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Until recently Mervyn’s was the nearest clothing store from our house. My wife and I have visited the store innumerable number of times. We have purchased clothes not only for ourselves, but also for our parents, grand parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, friends, aunts, and uncles. One of our most exciting moments at Mervyn’s was shopping for our baby before he was born. We felt like purchasing the whole baby section. Unfortunately, we cannot tell him, “This is where we shopped for your newborn clothes,” when he grows up.

I exclaimed, “What!” to myself about two months ago when I saw a yellow banner that said “Going Out of Business” on the building at Mervyn’s Plaza. I came home and hurriedly checked whether we had any Mervyn’s gift cards. I didn’t want to wait until it became worthless. Fortunately we had none. This morning I drove past Mervyn’s. The parking lot was empty, and the store was void of all the aisles. The name, though meaningless, still stood high on the outside wall.

What forces could have brought this giant retailer to face extinction? Businessweek has a good account: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111040876189.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_top+story

Few questions haunt my mind:

What was Target’s strategy behind selling Mervyn’s to the private investment firms in 2004?

Why did the private investment firms break Mervyn’s into two divisions – one holding Mervyn’s real estate and the other holding Mervyn’s operations? For me it seems like the investment firms were interested only in the real estate, and not the business.

Mervyn’s accumulated debt over a period of time. Had Mervyn’s been a single entity (with both real estate and operations together), what would its leverage power be? Could the company then have borrowed more money to turn around the business?

Was liquidation the only solution for repaying the debt?

18,000 jobs got lost across US because of the total liquidation. Are the legislations on private corporations so weak that they could not protect those jobs? Should big sized private corporations follow the regulatory rules similar to that of public companies?

Had Mervyn's been a publicly traded company, would it have met with the same fate?

Do the consumers have any rights on gift cards, given the fact that they are purchased in advance? Shouldn’t the consumers be paid before the creditors?

A Real Sky Mall

2008-12-24T15:47:00.000-08:00

There was a time not so long ago when too much business travel made me feel exasperated. However idle time on the long flights gave me ample opportunity to catch up with reading. Occasionally, when I forgot to carry a book on board or when my laptop ran out of battery, I would glance through the magazines found in the front pouch. There was one thing common with all airlines – all the booklets sucked. The monthly magazines were overwhelmed with unnecessary advertisements. I had to literally search for real reading material in the middle of jumbo sized ads.

The other book that amused me very much was the Sky Mall catalogue. Every time I opened it, I wondered who on the earth (or on the air) would be so crazy to buy such hilarious, expensive, mindless gadgets. Check out this blog - http://orbitingfrog.com/blog/2008/04/25/10-most-hilarious-sky-mall-products/ . Unable to control my laugh, I would cover my mouth with my hands to avoid any kind of unwarranted attention from my fellow passengers.

Can’t the airline industry think of selling better things? Once on board, I had fever and severe headache, and how much yearned for something like Tylenol! Another time I reached Savannah, GA very late in the night. Just before getting down the flight I realized I had forgotten my shaving set. It was too late to go around and look for it. I had a meeting to attend 8 in the morning. Had there been a little store in the airplane, I would have paid premium to buy shaving cream and a pair of blades.

I am positive airlines industry could cough up few bucks by selling things with following nature:
1. Essential commodities
2. Light in weight
3. Low in volume
4. Soft items with no sharp edges

Some of the items that fall under this category are:
1. Over the counter medicine – Tylenol, Motrin, Theraflu, antacids, eye drops, etc.
2. Baby needs – diapers, wipes, baby formula, etc.
3. Items for kids – little toys, hand held games, etc.
4. Items for adults – toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, lip sticks, blush, etc.
5. Popular magazines, bestselling novels.
6. DVDs
7. GPS based navigation systems
8. Digital cameras
9. Hand and foot massagers
10. Anti smoking patches

Sounds like Walgreens in air! I believe the main problem for airlines is not selling, but how to streamline the process of stocking the goods. By adopting the latest advancements in IT and supply chain management, the airlines could possibly turn this into a profitable business. With over 20,000 flights a day, if the turnover per flight is about $100, the estimate yield of this new business venture is about $2,000,000 a day!

A three hour flight with 100 passengers contributes 300 idle man-hours. So why not make use of this time to sell some service. How about head/neck massaging by the flight attendants?

A Professional’s Soul-Searching Questions

2008-12-14T00:41:00.000-08:00

What should a professional choose –

• Employment or employability?
• Job security or job satisfaction?
• Good job title or good compensation?
• Job that shoulders responsibility or the one that gives freedom?
• Place where people mostly seek your guidance or one where you mostly seek others’ advice?
• To be sincere to your job or to be sincere to your profession?

Not Invented Here

2008-12-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

How awful would Steve Jobs feel if he happens to run into an Apple employee walking with a Blackberry? Would Google call you for an interview if you give a yahoo email address? Would Larry permit Oracle datacenters to run on IBM mainframes? It is a well known (or rumored) fact that Microsoft banned use of iPod in its campus.

“Not Invented Here (NIH)” factor is such a strong cultural symbol in the present day corporate world that it would be foolish (and sometimes disastrous) to ignore it. Given that you have consciously or unconsciously gotten used to this corporate culture, how would you react if you run into a situation where one company endorses its own competitor’s product? You would find it highly ridiculous and laughable, right?

Apache’s Lucene search engine is one of the greatest open source contributions in modern day computing. Solr is an application that embeds Lucene, and provides an easy interface to configure and manage search services. Together, Solr and Lucene provide a powerful, scalable solution for indexing and searching thousands, if not millions of documents. Despite its growing popularity, and despite the fact that it is supported by the highly acclaimed Apache Software Foundation, Solr website offers great deal of amusing opportunities for the onlookers.

Just go to Solr’s website - http://lucene.apache.org/solr/index.html. On the top right corner you would find a search bar that says, “Search the site with google.” I cannot think of a reason why Solr folks cannot implement an in-house search solution. Solr has a very active mailing list. All emails right from January 2006 are archived very well. Unfortunately, you can only browse through the list one by one. How nice it would have been had they indexed all the emails from the archive and provided a simple search interface! That itself would have been a sample use case for Solr.

Solr folks may argue, “Why re-invent the wheel while Google already does it for you?” Hmmm… What would you do if you are appointed as the Solr project moderator?

A Metaphor From Mythology

2008-12-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

Mumbai tragedy spoiled my “Thanks Giving” holiday this year. Had my wife not expressed her frustration about me getting glued to internet and television, I would have spent all four days and nights following the news.

While I was listening to the radio yesterday, one person called terrorism a mighty beast that has gone out of control. I thought that was an interesting metaphor. It’s true that a few decades ago there was one monster, but now there are many clones of the same. By the time one is captured, there is another that springs up on the other side of the planet. And there are many roaming freely in the wilderness too. As they have abundant supply of food, they are growing bigger and bigger. In a perfect natural ecosystem no one animal gets a chance to dominate – deer has a lion, lion has another lion, the other lion has innumerable bacteria and virus, etc. But it seems these monsters have no challengers at all. Instead of trying to capture the beasts, why isn’t the global civilized community thinking of clearing the forest and stopping the feed to these animals?

Talking of metaphors, the story that comes to my mind is one from Indian mythology. It is about a brutal demon called “Raktabijasura (rakta = blood, bija = seed, asura = demon)” Raktabijasura was the leader of demons with a unique boon – for every drop of blood that spills on the ground, a clone with the same power and capacity as the master would be born. The nobles had no clue how to contain this demon (or the clones of demons), while he went on killing the innocents. What a striking resemblance this story has with what the world is facing today!

Finally the nobles had to invoke mother Kali, the most powerful force in the universe, to destroy him. Kali sucked all his blood at once and in a fraction of a second without letting the blood fall on the ground. The mother had to take this extreme step to protect her children on this planet.

Effective Communication of Work Related Tasks

2008-11-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

The access to a wide variety of communication systems does pose new challenges in effective communication. One on-going problem I have been facing all these years is – there is no one right way to communicate with everybody. That’s because the preferences and capabilities differ from person to person. While few of my team members in the past and present are good at spoken communication, others are good at email correspondence.

Let’s say you have a problem to solve, and you need to communicate the problem to one of your colleagues, and get him/her to solve the problem. How would you communicate the problem? Some of the ways you may communicate are:

Case 1. Discuss the problem verbally – either face to face or by phone, and delegate the problem.

Case 2. Email the problem, and request the colleague to find a solution.

Case 3. Discuss the problem, document the gist of discussion and email the document.

Case 4. Discuss the problem, ask the colleague to document what he/she has understood, review the document, then delegate the task of solving the problem.

Case 5. Email the problem, ask your colleague to review, and then discuss the problem verbally.

As I said before there is no one right way. This is my analysis of these cases:

Case 1. This works if you and your colleague trust each other very much and have perfect understanding between yourselves. If you really have this level of understanding, it really comes handy when you have very little time at hand. If the necessary requirements of trust and understanding fail to meet, this way of communication is doomed to fail.

Case 2. I have seen a few jerks doing this assuming they have done enough to cover their butt. This method doesn’t achieve an important thing in communication – closing the loop. Though a person should avoid this method, one should be really aware of others who communicate via this mode. If you have a boss or a peer or a subordinate who has a tendency to communicate this way, you take initiative to close the loop.

Case 3. This is an extension of second case. Just that you discuss the problem before you send the document out. It may surprise many, but it is my experience that this method is no better than the previous one. It is very easy for people to forget what was orally transmitted to them.

Case 4. This case is better than the previous ones. This method closes the loop. It puts you and colleague on the same page. However, your colleague may get annoyed if the same technique is thrust on him/her often. If your colleague is not your subordinate, you run into the situation where your colleague may ignore the problem completely.

Case 5. I have seen that this works in many cases. This technique closes the loop. It gives an opportunity for your colleague to visualize the problem, and come prepared for the oral discussion. This also gives your colleague a chance to critique the problem definition. If your colleague hasn’t understood the problem, it gives you a chance to explain the problem.

Case number 5 is just one of the better ways of communicating, and this is my personal opinion. Whatever effort you may put, beyond a certain point, whether your colleague will be able to solve the problem will purely depend on his/her ability to solve it.

Colorful Fall

2008-11-10T20:56:00.001-08:00

I just thought of experimenting with photographing colors this fall. It's not trees alone that change colors during fall in US. Shopping malls start stocking colorful things for Christmas. Even though I am not a big fan of eating chocolates, I liked the colorful assortment of the Belgian chocolates.

Leaves

Chocolates

I became a Dad!

2008-11-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

What an exciting moment it was when our first son, Suhrith (Suhrith = person with good heart) was born on October 26th!! Since then it has been a busy, busy time. For the first two days I kept a count of how many diapers I changed. Now I have lost track of it. I jumped with joy today when he pee-ed on me while changing diapers!

Having born in a family of musicians, Suhrith is indeed gifted with a superb voice. When he cries, he picks the highest pitch, and yells at the peak of his voice. He has an unbelievable capacity of reaching this height within a second. My wife, my mother-in-law, and I - all three of us have mastered the co-ordinating act of calming him down by changing diapers and getting him ready for the next feed. The pace at which we perform our tasks reminds me of the formula-1 car racing pit-stops.

That-Freaking-Software-Engineer

2008-10-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

It is not unnatural for an average thinking human being to show some amount of aspiration towards commanding power. Little is to be said about an above average person. It is a no-brainer that Software Engineers, many of who think they are above the above-average, wield power in their own capacity.

Psychologists and Management Gurus have been studying the concept of “fundamental attribution error” for quite some time. “Creation of awe” is a direct consequence of this effect. Dictators erecting their own statues, CEO occupying the corner office, a successful businessman buying an expensive car are some of the examples of creating an awe by the individuals in their respective communities. Does this strategy help in attracting power? Management gurus claim that it does very much, because the receiving audience is very likely to display “fundamental attribution error.”

How do the geeky Software Engineers create awe in their office environment? Here are some of the samples:

1. Profuse usage of unheard jargons: Whether in the meetings, or email chains, or in writing the supporting documents, the super humans of this category shower multitudinous technical terms, especially the abbreviations. “AVOD doesn’t support SECP!” While a non technical person or a naïve engineer in the group may get intimidated, a seasoned peer software engineer counter attacks with more jargons, creating more confusion.

2. Demand multiple desktops and monitors: A software nerd always complains about the shortage of CPU cycles, even though all the machines assigned to him/her show an average CPU idle time of 99%.

3. Evangelize a product which is just out in the news and still being developed, and insist that that’s the best thing developed on this planet, despite plethora of bugs found in the product.

I am sure there are many more...

I would be completing 10 years of my career as Software Engineer this week. I belong to the school of thought that believes that one learns “how not to be” more than “how to be” while going through the wonderful journey of career. I just wish I won’t end up being that-freaking-software-engineer.

Mysore Dasara

2008-10-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

Many of my colleagues here in the US know only Diwali as the Hindu festival. I tried my best this morning to explain to them how big a festival Navaratri is, and how deeply we, the Kannadigas, associate ourselves with Mysore Dasara. Royal procession of elephants, golden ambaari, the whole palace lit up in the evening, etc., - all seemed like a fancy Bollywood fairy tale to all of them. One of my colleagues sarcastically asked me if googling for Mysore Dasara really results in pages that show the extravaganza. I hadn’t seen any website describing Mysore Dasara before. Even though I positively approved his idea of doing a web search, I had a sense of fear back of my mind thinking whether there was a professional website.

One of my colleagues turned towards his monitor and keyboard, while all of us circled around him. He googled for Mysore Dasara, and the website – www.mysoredasara.com – at the top. Whoever has developed this website, he or she or the whole team has done a terrific job. The layout is professional, and the colors are pleasing. There are no jazzy advertisements, nor any flashy announcements. The quality of pictures put for display is extremely good. My colleagues spent quite some time browsing through the photos, and reading about the history and culture. Expression on their faces showed how astonished they were by the magnanimity of the festival.

Then I went back to my desk tried find out who developed the website. But, I couldn’t. There was a feedback link at the bottom. I couldn’t wait long to give my positive opinion about the website.

“Do’s and Dont’s” page has interesting advice for the visitors. The suggestions, though true, are amusing. Here they are (of course with my funny comments):

* Make sure to book your hotel accommodation in advance.
How advance? A month before, or a year before?

* Do visit all places of tourist interest.
Oh! Really? What would happen if I miss the zoo? Is the chimpanzee going to miss me?

* Do be careful of your belongings and watch out for pick pockets.
“Do be careful” or just “Be careful?” Watch out for “pick pockets” or “pickpocketers?”

* Ask a policeman for the right directions.
Do they substitute GPS based navigation systems so well?

* If traveling in an autorikshaw make sure the fare meter is on.
I would say, “Do not take an autorikshaw if you are out of town, unless you want yourself to be taken for a ride”

* Do not solicit unlicensed touts & guides.
Does that mean there are licensed touts and guides too?

* Buy from authorized & genuine outlets only.
And pay extra price for doing so.

* Ask for boiled drinking water in restaurants.
What about bottled water? Won't bottled water companies go out of business?

Rose

2008-10-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Bay Area experienced first showers of the season. It was a perfect time for the rose plant in our front yard to bloom. I also got a new digital SLR last week. Everything fell in place so well that I could capture this picture...

Attempt to Learn a New Language

2008-09-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

Learning about other cultures is something I am very passionate about. I am lucky to have a few Chinese colleagues – a couple from mainland China, and a few from Taiwan. One of them is now a very good friend of mine. He is helping me with the basic words and sentences in Mandarin. I’ve never got any pronunciation right so far. “Don’t loose heart,” consoles my friend, “it is just a matter of time.”

From very minuscule information I have gathered so far, Mandarin seems to be a highly expressive language. For a non-Chinese speaker, the language sounds as though it is perfectly suited for exchanging heated arguments. The same syllables uttered in different tones differ a lot in their meanings catastrophically. “Ma” pronounced in one tone means “mother”. The same syllable, “Ma,” pronounced in other tone means “horse!”

The first word I learned is, “baitsz_,” which means “idiot.” I have practiced it more than 100 times to get almost close to what is correct. My Chinese friend says I am 90% there.

“ni hau (how are you?)” and “sei sei (thank you)” are the common phrases. “ni chau sammoh meentz_?” is “what is your name?” Literally it means “How do you call your name?” To get it right one needs to use proper tones. For those who know Indian classical music the notes are: sa _ pa _ ga re ga_ _sa : ni _ chau _ sam moh meen_ _ tz_.

“Bui yao” is “I don’t want it.” My friend suggests this phrase comes very handy if I go to China. He says, “Just say bui yao – I don’t want it – when somebody comes to you on the street selling something. How about yelling “Baitsz_!!” if the vendor doesn’t stop annoying? My friend doesn’t think that’s a nice thing to do in a foreign country.

“Say ‘Wa aye ni’ to your wife, and she will feel very happy,” said my friend with a naughty smile, “it means I love you.”

I thought for a second and replied seriously, “I can’t say whether she feels happy or not, but I can certainly say she will look at me dumb folded.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“She can’t get it. She doesn’t know Mandarin…” Ha ha ha. Both of us laughed heartily at my great joke.

Interestingly Mandarin is an English word for the Chinese official language. In Chinese, they call it Guanhua, which means “the language of ministers.” According to Wikipedia, Mandarin is derived from Menteri in Malay, which is again derived from Mantri in Sanskrit.

88888, 08/08/08

2008-08-08T12:15:00.001-07:00

Today is 8th day of the 8th month of the year 2008! My car completed 88,888 miles on the road just yesterday. I was anticipating it to happen today, but it happened yesterday. I had my camera ready when I started from home to work. Fortunately, I had to stop my car at a traffic light, and was able to capture this picture.

88,888 miles on road

Being Successful vs Being Effective

2008-08-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

It’s appalling to learn that being successful in career and being effective at delivering stuff are completely unrelated. This was one of the management mantras I learned at the business school. Since then I have been analyzing the functioning style of some of my colleagues from past and present. Only few fall into both the categories. Most of them are either successful or effective. Of course, there are some who are neither successful, nor effective.

Here is a list of some of my observations. This is definitely not a complete list.

Traits of successful people:

1. They spend more time and effort in building a good relationship with the people in the organization in general, and with those above them in the hierarchy in particular.

2. Impression management: Successful people impress their higher ups by
a. Laughing intensely at every little joke the higher ups make. They conspicuously don’t laugh at the humor coming out of peers or subordinates
b. Loitering around boss’s office
c. Staying back at work late in the evenings
d. Telling the bosses what they want to hear
e. Attending boss’s every meeting

3. Politics: Successful people consider the work place to be a political arena. They won’t let anybody steal their cheese.

4. They jump ahead of everybody in order to give free advice, especially when the boss seeks it.

5. Timing - when to play the cards: Successful people know exactly when to claim responsibility (upon success) and when to throw the ball into somebody’s court (upon failure).

Working style of effective people:

1. They are task oriented and consider finishing the task is more important than anything else at work.

2. Rewards don’t matter them much.

3. They spend more time with their peers and subordinates.

4. They are mostly oblivious to playing political games.

5. Effective people effectively shield their subordinates from the pressure and idiosyncrasies of their bosses.

6. They give higher priority to giving the ‘right’ advice over giving ‘any’ advice.

I don’t want to be in a situation of choosing between the two options. To be both effective and successful requires selecting good principles and ideas from both the buckets. Claiming success without sincerely accomplishing it doesn’t give satisfaction.

San Diego and The Theme Parks

2008-07-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

San Diego was our destination for the July 4th long weekend. My wife and I visited my brother’s family, as they moved to Carlsbad near San Diego few weeks ago.

Sunset at the beach near Carlsbad

Any visitor to San Diego would rarely miss the Sea World. Shamu, the much hyped killer whale, was worth every penny. The crowd, the heat, and the wait before each event tired our muscles and spirits. Anticipating a mad rush to get out of the park after the fireworks, we sneaked out of the campus, while the rest of the crowd enjoyed the show. Despite our intelligent move, we were stuck in the outbound traffic for about half an hour. Just imagine what our state would have been had we waited until the end.

Shamu, the Killer Whale

Shamu and the Trainer

Crowd waiting for the show, Shamu Rocks

We visited the Wild Animal Park along with my brother and his wife the next day. The weather was too hot. Feeding the lorikeets was the event we all enjoyed.

The Cheetah at the Wild Animal Park

The Lions

Some of the things one should bear in mind while visiting theme parks in the US are:

1. AAA membership helps you get discount at the theme parks.

2. Know the show times in advance, and plan to be there half an hour before the show time to occupy the right seat.

3. Most of the shows start pre-cursor entertainment about 15 minutes before the main program begins. It serves two purposes – 1. The waiting audience won’t get bored. 2. The audience would start watching the show with great deal of enthusiasm, which in some way induces them to appreciate the show better. This is a lesson for performing artists and those who give presentation to a sizable audience.

4. Any item you buy at the park – food, souvenir, juice, ice cream, battery, camera accessories – is price inelastic (there is more demand, hence expensive). Plan properly and avoid buying unnecessary things.

5. If you are a vegetarian, parks are not vegetarian friendly.

6. The crowd always moves slow, and invariably follows the more congested route. Use your observation to find alternate routes to escape the crowd.

7. You always get to park at the most distant parking lot.

8. Drink lot of water to keep yourself properly hydrated.

My First Video Editing Experience

2008-06-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

It all started with a little thought that I would impress my wife, which I rarely succeed in achieving, by making a good short film about a vacation we had been together.

Singapore was our vacation place on our way to India last year (Read my blog here http://hkroshan.blogspot.com/2007/12/singapore-break.html).We were overly enthused to capture a lot of video during this short vacation on our newly purchased Canon DC220 camcorder. However, the videos we shot displayed hardly any professionalism. The shots were usually long, and boring. Some of them were completely disconnected. Not to mention the shaken video. It was virtually impossible to watch them without proper editing.

This was what I planned:
1. Copy the video files from the DVD on Canon DC220 to my PC.
2. Use Microsoft Moviemaker make and edit a new movie.
3. Upload the edited movie on to Youtube or Google Videos so that our family members could see it.

The plan sounds pretty easy, right? I thought I would be done in a couple of hours. But my effort estimate turned out to be unrealistically aggressive.

The Camcorder’s small DVD failed open on my PC. The manual said to perform a function called “Finalize” on the DVD in order to open it on a PC. In my special case, the “Finalize” option was grayed out. Canon's “official” website had no tools or pointers to accomplish this task. After much of hacking and fiddling, I almost gave up until I discovered Roxio’s MyDVD software package. Roxio claimed it could read video from any source format, including that of Canon DC220. The software, MyDVD Premier, cost $70! I couldn't help but buy it.

I purchased the software package online, and later learned that the download file was more than 1GB. That was the time when I blurt out my first curse at Roxio. I really wished that its website mentioned up front what the size of the download file was. I fired the download and went to bed late in the night.

The next day, it took a while for me to find how to pull files from the Camcorder. Few steps were intuitive to follow, and many were not. Despite having a USB2.0 interface, it took more than an hour to transfer half an hour worth of video onto my PC. The momentum of my cursing did build up heavily during this tormenting period. Nevertheless, I was at least satisfied that I could now play the video files on my PC.

Windows Movie Maker did not like the format of the saved files. It was kind of surprising to me, because they played well on Windows Media Player, another baby of the same world’s-most-valuable company. It appears like even Bill Gates is not being able to stand such idiosyncrasies any more.

Fortunately, Roxio MyDVD software package came with a video editor called VideoWave. Its editing features were similar to that of Movie Maker. So it wasn’t hard to learn. I also liked the fact that I could insert photo images, and add text on the screen. Bugs in VideoWave software would cause my machine to crash every few minutes. I learned the hard way that I had to save my edits every few minutes, if not seconds.

Converting the VideoWave’s project into a single file required some knowledge about the video codecs and the file format. VLC (www.videolan.org) turned out to be the best software to learn and understand the video codecs and file formats. After some research, I selected my video codec to be MPEG2 with 29 frames per second, and a constant bit rate of 8 mega bits per second. For audio I selected MPEG1 with 44.1 KHz, with 320 kilo bits per second. This process took another half an hour.

At the end of the exercise, I was able to make a 10 minute video about our Singapore trip. It wasn’t really bad. I was very much satisfied with what came out finally. What I initially thought would take a few hours took me a few days to finish. My wife was completely unimpressed with my new endeavor. She vehemently disapproved it. Reason: I spent more time editing than being with her.

An Easy Sounding Puzzle

2008-06-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

One of my friends asked me this question some time ago:

You need to play 3 tennis games with two players A and B, such that you don’t play same player back to back. In essence, you play two games with one of the two players, and one game with the other.

A is a stronger player than you are, and B is weaker than you. In other words, the probability of you winning against A is less than 50% and that of you winning against B is more than 50%. If you have to win two consecutive games, would you play two games (1st and 3rd) against A or against B?

Think about the answer… I am going to play two games against A. What about you?

Cherry Picking at Brentwood

2008-06-09T18:49:00.001-07:00

It’s June, the cherry picking season in California! We had had a fun time at Brentwood last year (http://hkroshan.blogspot.com/2007/06/lakes-and-cherries.html). My wife and one of her colleagues scheduled a little picnic to Brentwood this time. Our four year old niece could not refuse when we offered her to join us.

880N -> 680N -> 580E -> Vasco Road North led us towards Brentwood. Vasco Road circled over the winding valleys and hills. Hundreds, if not thousands of wind mills displayed constant smile at the cars passing by. The cows grazing underneath the giant wind mills were oblivious to both the cars and the peculiar structured towers that surrounded them. They were too busy grazing.

Yummy Cherries!

A Cherry Grove

We crossed many fruit picking farms as soon as we hit Brentwood. The farms that came first were quite crowded. After driving around for a while, we chose a farm that was far away from the main road. It helped us in two ways – 1. It was less crowded. 2. The trees still had some good cherries.

At the farm, we probably tasted more cherries than we picked. They should call the experience “cherry tasting” instead of “cherry picking.” My stomach ached with high acid level when I stopped eating more. Kids enjoyed the most despite a temperature of 100 degree Fahrenheit.

Immediate Effect of Soaring Gas Prices

2008-06-06T22:15:00.001-07:00

The gas price is expected to cross $5 a gallon in a few days from now. I happened to visit San Francisco city this week, and for the first time I felt like there were more two wheeled vehicles than cars. It takes little thinking to learn why motor bikes and scooters are selling like hot cakes in California. It is heartening to see more people have started commuting to work on fuel efficient motor bikes. That's scary because casual car drivers in US don't anticipate bikes while driving. Wide blind spots make it more difficult for pick-up trucks and SUVs. Good luck bikers! May fate be kind to you all...

This this San Francisco, not Bangalore. Ten years ago, could anybody dream of so many motor bikes in a US city?

Amusing Moments with Customer Service

2008-05-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

I end up with a new story almost every time I call a customer support number. I have had unique unimaginable experiences with almost every service – telephone, cable, internet, utilities, credit cards, insurance, and so on. While some cases are frustrating, many are amusing.

When I opened the front door of my house Saturday morning, I stumbled upon a big blue bag containing rolls of paper. Saturday edition of San Jose Mercury News has more advertisements, classifieds, and coupons than the news. At first I thought somebody has delivered it to my house by mistake. When I looked closer, the news paper had a cover letter thanking the customer (supposedly I) for starting the new subscription. I instantaneously exclaimed, “When did I subscribe to this news paper?”

I did not expect the news paper to show up the next day, but it did. When it showed up once again on Monday, I feared a big fat payment invoice would show up at the door very soon if I took no action.

The cover letter of the Saturday’s news paper had a toll free customer service number to call. I hurriedly picked the phone and dialed the number. An automated voice greeted me on the other side. “Thank you for calling…… Please enter your telephone number.” I waited for a while, but the automated gatekeeper won’t let me speak with anybody until I entered my phone number. That was annoying, because

1. I dialed from my home number. The opposite party can automatically detect the number through the caller-id.

2. Why would San Jose Mercury News need my number? I wasn’t its customer. So what would the support folks do with my phone number?

I tried dialing again. No luck. The gatekeeper was adamant. She won’t let me move ahead unless I entered a ten digit number. I entered some illegal number. Fortunately, the gatekeeper was dumb, and did not verify the validity of my number. I had a sense of relief…. only for a brief time.

A customer service representative picked up my call. She started her conversation by blurting out a few memorized sentences. As with most cases, I could not follow her name. While I was eager to explain my problem, she was hell bent upon getting my correct phone number. Dah!! She would not listen to me at all.

“Sir, could you please tell me your phone number so that I can pull your record?” she continued.

“But I am not your customer. You don’t have my record.”

“Sir, but I still need your phone number. I cannot process your request without your phone number.”

I gave up and told her my number. San Jose Mercury News promises delivery for the new subscription to start within a day. The same promise doesn’t seem to stand for stopping an unintended service, because I am still getting the news paper after four days.

Collecting Fund for Victims

2008-05-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

I drove to office listening to the news coverage about China’s earthquake last Friday. The story was horrific. I kept thinking about natural disasters, calamities, victims, and their helplessness while I walked on the corridor leading to my office. A sudden thought occurred in my mind: Why not raise some money for the relief operations?

I picked up a small packaging box that was lying at a corner in our lab. Our network printer had a freshly loaded ream of white sheets in its tray. I pulled some of them out. Then I got a glue stick and covered the box with the white paper on all sides. A solitary red ball point pen was waiting for me in the office supplies box. I painted a bright + sign in red.

I declared in front of one of my Chinese colleagues that I was going to collect money for earthquake relief victims. He was pleased by it, and gave me pointers to a non profit organization that was actively involved in fund collection. I placed the box at the front desk of our office where everybody can notice it while walking in and out. Then I sent out an email to all-hands requesting all of them to donate at least $20. I feared the collection would be too less if I didn’t set an expectation. I put my own $20, so that the box gained some momentum right from the beginning.

After a week, we collected $160. Only 7 apart from me had contributed (assuming every person contributed $20).

Today I took the box in hand, and went around and asked every person I could access to donate some money. The collection suddenly went up to $300. More than half of the persons I approached today claimed to have already contributed. Five persons said they had contributed through other means. Two begged for pardon for not having cash or check.

Lessons learned:

1. Fund raising gives more satisfaction than just contributing
2. Personal solicitation may double the collection
3. Showing hesitation to ask for money is bad
4. Not everybody contributes for the sake of helping victims
5. Initiatives help in creating new bonds. My Chinese colleagues now respect me and treat me as a member of their own family

Number Drill

2008-05-15T11:37:00.001-07:00

We had to go through a number drill in one of my management courses this week. A fellow student who conducted the drill gave us a 7 x 7 grid of numbers. The numbers were arranged in a definite pattern. The task given to us was this: Circle the numbers in ascending order and try to circle as much as possible in 30 seconds.

While everybody in the class was trying to search for numbers, I started circling all the numbers like crazy. I finished circling all the numbers in less than 25 seconds.

The organizer asked, “Has anybody circled more than 15?”

I raised my hand. She asked me, “How many?”

I said, “All of them.”

Everybody in the class started murmuring. I explained the logic. “There are 49 numbers. I can circle at a rate of two every second. So I could complete all the numbers in less than 30 seconds.”

My fellow classmates pounced on me with objections from all corners. They argued that I broke the rule.

This was my argument – “Finishing the task with maximum efficiency is what is important here. The goal here is to circle maximum numbers in ascending order within a given time. If I can finish circling all the numbers within the given time, the order in which I circle the number does not matter. In my solution breaking the rule has no side effects. Obviously, this solution won’t work if the gird has 100 numbers, as I cannot circle all the numbers in 30 seconds. So my solution is a valid one.”

I could not convince the class. What would you do in such a situation? Would you break an established process or a soft rule to achieve better results?

Musical Weekend

2008-05-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

The traditional art forms of India – music, dance, painting, sculpture, etc. – try to blend art with philosophy. The taste of the amalgam that comes out of this mixture gives at most satisfaction for those seeking spiritual pleasure. The idea of mixing music and philosophy goes back to the days of Saama Veda, and was later revived by the saints of Karnataka around 15th century AD. Purandara Dasa started a new tradition of music which popular as Karnataka Sangeetha, also known as Carnatic Classical Music. Shyama Shastri, Saint Tyagaraja, and Muttuswami Dikshitar, all from the Tiruvaroor region of Tamil Nadu, and contemporaries during the early 18th century, enhanced the music with their hundreds of beautiful compositions. The form of music has grown extensively since then, and has been growing today too.

Patrons of Carnatic Classical Music of Salt Lake City conducted a music festival as a tribute to Saint Tyagaraja. My brother, Shyam and I presented a concert at the gathering on Saturday. We selected Todi as the main raaga, and rendered Daachukovalena, one of the fine compositions of Saint Tyagaraja. The ten beat “mishra jhampe” rhythm was a good exercise for the accompanying artists. We enjoyed every bit of it. My brother, his wife Sumana, and few of their friends later performed in a creative next generation program. They sang classical music with drums and other modern instruments. It did not sound bad at all. Kids, especially, seemed to have loved it. Sumana played Veena while Shyam performed on vocals. Sumana later played solo Veena too.

Later on in the evening I got an opportunity to attend one of the finest concerts in my life time. Sankaran Mahadevan, a Civil Engineering Professor from Tennessee impressed the audience with his effortless singing and creative patterns of the swaras (notes). The best according to me was his rendition of “Saketaniketana” in raaga Kannada. I have never heard any musician singing and elaborating raaga Kannada so fluently. Arun Kumar from Denver was yet another musician I was impressed with. I wish I get a chance to hear them more.

My brother and I sang once again at Ganesha Temple, Salt Lake City on Sunday. The serene atmosphere at the temple was gratifying.