Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Tanish

I wonder how you are? I keep thinking of you, do you also think of me? I wonder if you browse the web? Will you stumble on this? Will you know I care? Will you know that if there is anything constant in my life it is pain. The pain which you my son were put through! The pain which came to you, cause you were my son. The tears trickle down endlessly, to no avail. There is no respite. It only gets grimmer, the moment gets gloomier. The future does not have hope. I get my strength from my tears, thinking about the pain you are going through. I only get stronger my son. Cause I know I am your father, and you will one day be proud to tell the world that I am your father and you are not alone. I think of your new school. I hope you have a new school. I think about your classmates, and so wish you had the same classmates. And your teachers who again are new. Do they care for you? I do my son. But will you ever know? The tears keep trickling, but the pain is constant. I keep thinking of you and your younger brother. Do you think of me? Do you remember me? I am your dad.

Friday, October 1, 2010

More than two years since I blogged here or anywhere. So I re-read all my earlier posts and found them interesting. It did not seem like something I had written, and thats true because I am no longer what I was three years back. Will try to continue blogging.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Being worldly wise

When I was younger, I remember my elders sometimes mention the word"worldly wise". To me, at that time,it sounded no different from "wise". According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, worldly wise means: "possessing a practical and often shrewd understanding of human affairs". Wise means "characterized by wisdom : marked by deep understanding, keen discernment, and a capacity for sound judgment".

Recently one of our managers two levels above my manager from a different location was visiting us, and during a meeting with the project managers he asks us -"Do you think it is beneficial for me to also meet the designers?",to which one the project managers replied. "Absolutely without question! The designers have not seen you and you meeting them will help them attach a face to a name".

Just after the visiting manager departed, during an informal conversation over a cup of tea, this project manager says -"Our employees don't really care who the manager two/three levels above them are, as long as they get a good salary to take home".

This is the truth. The previous statement by this project manager was a worldly wise statement.
Now, because of the worldly wise statement made by this influential project manager, we would have this visiting manager every three months addressing 300+ people for 1.5+ hours. That is a lot of wasted time.

So, being worldly wise and wise are contradictory. A wise decision would lead to sound judgements beneficial for the majority. A worldly wise person does not care about having a sound decision, as long as his interests are taken care of.

Corruption is rampant in India because people are being worldly wise, both bribe givers and takers. Unless the judicial system ensures swift and severe punishments for bribe givers and takers, this will remain a worldly wise thing to do.

China recently executed its ex - Food and Drug chief on corruption charges.The execution was carried out in under 2 months of the conviction.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The attention economy - Thomas & Beck

In this book "The attention economy", authored by Thomas H Davenport and John C Beck.
A few interesting points they outline are

"DEFICIT PRINCIPLE: Before you can manage
attention, you need to understand just how
depleted this resource is for organizations and
individuals."

"BANKRUPTCY PRINCIPLE: If you run an attention deficit
too often or too long, there will eventually be serious psychological
and organizational consequences."

"MARKETS PRINCIPLE: As with any other scarce and valuable
resource, markets for attention exist both within and
outside an organization. As with other markets, some people
do a lot better than others in the attention markets."

Here are some more interesting bits:

"Rule Number One is to pay attention. Rule Number Two might be: attention is a limited
resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention."

"The Sunday New York Times contains more factual information in one edition than in all the written material available to a reader in the .fteenth century."

"To control attention means to control experience, and therefore the quality of life.
Information reaches consciousness only when we attend to it. Attention acts as a filter between outside events and our experience with them. How much stress we experience depends more on how well we control attention, than on what happens to us."

" Because attention is one of those slippery intangible assets, it’s difficult to document its presence (though its absence is surely felt)."

"There is only so much attention to go around"

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

India's poor

Mr. Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft India recently wrote an article in the wall street journal - "Innovate for India's Poor" - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118470514352969321.html

He starts off by equating Moaists to the hundreds of millions of Indian villagers! He then dismisses the possibility of policy changes benefiting the poor. He disparages the indian political class. He goes on for a couple more paragraphs- cautioning the rich that the poor are going to steal your wealth! And he ends the article saying innovation by corporate's is the key!

Looks like he wrote the article to impress upon his bosses at Redmond.

We all know Microsoft is company which has spent millions of dollars to help people. But Mr Venkatesan needs to be more responsible while criticing indian policies and policy makers.

Monday, July 23, 2007

google + doubleclick

Google paid $1.65 billion for youtube last year. It now beat it's own previous record by paying $3.1 billion for DoubleClick. But the deal is subject to regulatory approvals.

The news now is antitrust defendents like Microsoft and AT&T are teaming up against
Google

http://news.com.com/On+antitrust%2C+is+Google+the+next+Microsoft/2100-1028_3-6198111.html?tag=st.num