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January 2008 - Posts
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My wife keeps complaining that I am not creative in my gifts to her. So for our wedding
anniversary last November I wanted to gift her something out of the world. What more
can be more befitting than few "Acres" of land in Moon as a gift.
Few weeks back I read in Ananda Vikatan magazine about sites in the Internet for you
to buy lands in the moon. So I went to one of the sites LunarRepublic referred
in the article. The site is supposed to be run by a Society based in USA which aims
to promote moon exploration and space science. The society is not owned or sponsored
by any government so its legality is definitely in doubt. According to a UN resolution,
no nation or individual has rights over moon so technically speaking your claim over
land in moon may not be valid in future. All said, I found the idea interesting and
the idea certainly novel for a gift, so I went ahead and bought two "Acres" of land
in Moon in an area called as Bay Of Rainbows (Sinus Iridium) at Rs.2940 (~ USD 32/Acre)
in my wife's name. Today I got the certificate from USA brought from there by
my co-worker coming to India.
I am going to give this to my wife in the evening and I am keeping my fingers crossed
as to whether she will feel happy for this gift (or) I am going to get it royally
from her for wasting Rs.2940 on something close to being a rip off :-)
Registered claim of land in moon
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Satellite image of the land I bought in moon
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Anyways, the certificate (shown above) and the satellite image make me feel I got
my worth for the money I paid!
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 Just
like last
two years, this year too I will be going for Mix
'08. Now in its third year, MIX is a good opportunity for hearing about cutting-edge
web technology, creative and business strategists all in one place and in an informal
style. That's why I think it is worth for me to spend few thousands grands and a travel
that will take me half-way around the world to attend Mix in Las Vegas.
It was told earlier that Steve Ballmer alone will be doing the keynote this year,
so I was left thinking so it will be only "English" & "Business" talk with no
new technology announcements. In a way of addressing my concern, Microsoft yesterday
announced that Chief Software Architect Ray
Ozzie will join Scott Guthrie on stage as a keynote speaker at MIX08. Ray is expected
to outline Microsoft’s progress card on their investments on the web platform, Silverlight
& IE. Stay Tuned!
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I
finally finished reading the book "It
happened in India", the reason I am saying finally is because that I have been
reading this book for nearly 2 months but managed to complete the last 30 pages only
today. The book is kind of an auto-biography of Mr.Kishore Biyani on the story of
Pantaloons, Biz Bazaar & Central retail stores.Let me say at the beginning, I
am a little biased in favour of Indian success stories - apart from being an Indian,
the reason is because I feel there is a dearth of good books on Indian business stories.
The first thing that you notice when you pick the book is a close resemblance of the
title It happened in India with Made in America (Sam
Walton's classic book). When you start reading you will continue
to see the unmistakable resemblance in the presentation format as well. The chapters
are presented in a fashion of first person voice intertwined with quotes from various
stake holders (business partners, employees & friends of the author). While reading
the first few chapters this resemblance put me off a little as I thought Kishore Biyani
had nothing original to say. Only after I finished nearly half of the book I realized
how mistaken I was, the chapters starting to get interesting and the experiences outlined
are very much India specific and original. Definitely Kishore Biyani and his team
have to be congratulated on their exciting journey in the world of Indian retail and
for brining many of the now common innovations. I was happy to read in pages 116-199,
Kishore Biyani quoting Chennai's own Saravana Stores as the inspiration
behind their Big Bazaar venture. He writes on how his team camped in Chennai visiting
Saravan Stores every day for weeks in understanding their merchandise mix and pricing.
The book tapers off towards the end where the author starts talking about his personal
philosophies & beliefs on business.
Overall, a good book to read at an attractive price of Rs.99 (~USD 2.5)
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I have a Nikon D80 camera and for best results I like to store the photos I take in
Nikon's Raw file format (.NEF). The problem with this format is that very few programs
know how to handle it correctly & fully.
Windows: If you want to view the files in Windows you need to install
the plug-ins from Nikon, which installs the appropriate DLLs into Windows. With that
in place you can open and view the files just like JPGs and GIFs in Windows Explorer.
But in Windows Vista (Windows Photo Gallery or Live Photo Gallery) there is no option
to convert the files from NEF to any other formats.
Adobe: At my laptop I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and this has
no plug-ins to open NEF (Nikon Raw) files, so I can't use the batch file conversion
option of PS Elements. At my work PC I have Adobe Photoshop CS3 which supports opening
of NEF format, but its batch conversion doesn't support conversion to JPG. I can't
record a new action to do this, because in CS3 the RAW files are opened with a popup
window (Camera Raw) which cannot be controlled through actions. I am able to convert
individual files using Camera Raw of CS3 but batch conversion of multiple files (Nikon
Raw files) at once doesn't seem to be possible with Adobe products out-of-box.
Picasa: Google Picasa supports viewing of Nikon Raw files. Picasa
also has the ability to convert the files to JPG while uploading it to Web. But it
doesn't seem to have the option of converting a folder containing NEF files to JPG
files and store them locally.
Irfanview: Finally, I turned to an old favourite of mine. Irfanview,
this is a free software that allows viewing, editing of multiple file formats and
supports slidesshow creation. I downloaded the base product and its plug-ins extension.
With the plug-ins installed, Irfanview was able to open NEF files and using its batch
conversion applet I was able to convert in seconds all my NEF files I
had into JPEG files.
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இரண்டு வாரங்களுக்கு முன் பொங்கல் விடுமுறையில் இந்தப் படத்தைப் சத்யம் திரையரங்கத்தில்
பார்த்தேன். இந்தப் படத்தைப் பற்றி ஒரே வரியில் சொல்வதானால் இப்படி சொல்லலாம்:
“அதிக பொருட்செலவில் அழகான ஒளிபதிவில் முழுவதும் மலேசியா நாட்டில் எடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ள
மிகச் சுமாரானப் படம்”.
ரஜினி நடித்த பழையப் பில்லா படத்தை நீங்கள் ஏற்கனவே பார்த்திருந்தால் தயவு செய்து இந்தப்
படத்தைப் பார்க்காமல் இருந்து உங்கள் பணத்தை மிட்சம் செய்யலாம். இயக்குனர் விஷ்ணுவரதன்
ஒன்றைக்கூட மாற்றவில்லை - சுத்த ஈ அடிச்சான் காப்பி.
நான் கொடுத்தக் காசுக்கு ஒரே ஆறுதல் - நயன்தாரா அழகாக வந்து போகிறார், சண்டை காட்சிகளில்
வேகமாக செய்து அசத்துகிறார். எவ்வளவு யோசித்தாலும் இதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும்
ஞாபகம் வரவில்லை.
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I have been a member of an organization called INFITT from
its inception around 2000. INFITT (International Forum for Information Technology
in Tamil) a global, non-governmental, non-profit organization registered in California,
USA. In Tamil known as "உத்தமம்" (உலகத் தகவல் தொழில்நுட்ப மன்றம்). Its main objective
is to promote Tamil computing worldwide by bringing together professionals of Tamil
IT, enthusiasts, Research Scholars and ordinary Tamils, so that Tamils can enjoy the
benefits of all IT developments natively in Tamil environment.
Over the years I have participated in various working groups and activities of INFITT.
Last year I was nominated as Chair to WG02 (Working Group 2 working on Tamil language
related items with Unicode) and as Interim Vice-Chair. I am happy to write that now
in 2008, we have successfully completed our elections at all levels (General Council
and Executive Council) in a professional & transparent manner. I am honoured by
the members for electing me unanimously to serve as their Vice-Chair for the period
2008-2009. I would like to thank all the members and Chair Dr.Kalyan for this honour
through this post.
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I just finished reading Men
of Steel by Vir Sanghvi. Vir
Sanghvi should be appreciated whole-heartedly for two things - first for writing
a very
needed book that compiles the stories of India's most successful business leaders
and second for writing it in a lively, enjoyable format. The book is a result of compilation
of Vir Sanghvi's articles that appeared on Hindustan Times Mumbai HT Leadership series
and so each of them are not more than 2000 words.
The book covers well known people like Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Kumar
Mangalam Birla, Sunil Bharti Mittal & Vijay Mallaya. Apart from that about people
I knew very little before - Bikki Oberoi, Uday Kotak, Rajeev Chandrasekha, Subhash
Chandra & Nusli Wadia. It was revealing. Every aspiring Entrepreneur in India
should read this book once.
One spelling mistake that caught my eyes - Airtel's Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal was
spelled wrongly with his middle name as "Bharati". See
the screenshots below - the left is from the book (wrongly given in that fashion throughout
the chapter) and on the right is from their website.
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For a business meeting tomorrow I had to come to Bangalore. It so happened in
the last 5 to 6 years that I almost always did morning-evening same day return flights
from Chennai to Bangalore due to my schedules and my dislike for Railway stations.
Considering the growing hassles of the hour-long queues in Airport securities and
the praises I was hearing from my colleagues/media about the improved service in Indian
Railways I decided this time to give Train a try.
Just now I reached Bangalore after travelling by Shatabdi Express that reached Bangalore
Cantonment at 10.20PM (STA 10.05PM) which started from Chennai at 5:30PM sharp.
The overall experience was very good, I am certainly pleased and I want to do this
more often than the flights - I guess this is more greener as well. Comparing
to Indian Railway's historic (lack of) standards everything was clean including the
coaches, seats, toilets and above all the stations at both end. I travelled
in the Executive coach and the service was certainly good, they kept giving you something
to eat through out the journey - Samosas, Cool Drink, Biscuits, Cashews, Waffers,
Coffee/Tea, Soap, Dinner and Ice-Cream. I was surprised to hear that they had PA systems
in the coaches in which they kept announcing things like crews names, delays, approaching
station, time of arrival, etc.
Above all I liked the idea you can be connected through a data card through out the
journey and keep working on your laptop catching up on your work. For instance, in
the first one hour, I finished most of my pending emails and in the next few hours
3/4th of a book.
Keep up the good work Indian Railways, Thanks Mr.Lalu & Team for giving us a good
experience.
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MVP Award for the year 2008 |
MVP Award for the year 2007 |
I have been a Microsoft Regional
Director (RD) from 1999 and I am happy to write here that Microsoft has renewed
me as an RD for another two years. The RD program is a honorary title conferred
to select professionals around the world who are passionate on Microsoft technologies.
Over 140 software architects, developers, trainers and other professionals are selected
by Microsoft as Regional Directors. The first thing to know is that, while we’re officially
recognized by Microsoft and often receive inside information about forthcoming technologies,
we are completely independent. We are not Microsoft employees.
Apart from being a RD, last
year (2007) I was named as a Microsoft
Most Valuable Professional (MVP) as well. I was given MVP
in the category of Visual Developer - Solutions Architect. Recently,
I was renewed as a MVP for this year as well. This entitles apart from other benefits,
membership to a very lively exclusive email alias participated by all MVPs.
You can check out my MVP
Profile here.
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As of last week (Pongal week) this blog completed its four years and into its fifth
year - unbelievable to see me having patience to do the posts. What is even more surprising
for me is the number of pageviews I am getting for the blog. Though the time spent
and bounce rates are below average, I am glad that for a personal log 6800 pageviews/month
are happening.
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Yesterday
was TiECon
2008, an event organized by TiE
Chennai to celebrate and recognize Entrepreneurship in the City. The event had
lot of stardom with the inauguration by Dr. M. Karunanidhi,Chief Minister, Tamilnadu
& Smt. M K Kanimozhi, Member of Parliament, Tamilnadu. Initially I didn't get
the connection between Hon'ble CM and an Entrepreneurship event, then it got clear
when the awards
recognizing Entrepreneurship were given to eminent personalities like Mrs
Y. G. Parthasarathy, Director and Dean, PSBB schools (Social entrepreneur
of the year), and Dr Pratap C. Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Group of hospitals
(Lifetime achievement). Ms.Kanimozhi (MP) in her speech talked about the similarities
between Chennai Sangamam and TiECon but many in the audience including myself didn't
get the connection.
Other awardees were:
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R. Subramanian, Founder and Managing Director, Subhiksha (Extreme Entrepreneur of
the year)
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R. Sarabeshwar, S. Sivaramakrishnan and V.G. Janarthanam, Founding Members, Consolidated
Construction Consortium Ltd (Entrepreneur of the year)
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Hemu Ramaiah, CEO, Landmark (Woman entrepreneur of the year)
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S. Abhay kumar, Founder and vice-chairman, Lifecell (large start-up entrepreneur of
the year)
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Vivek Anand, CEO, FitnessOne (small start-up entrepreneur of the year)
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Raju Venkataraman, President and Chief-Operating Officer &
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Firstsource (Serial entrepreneur of the year)
You can view short videos of the event including the CM
Address and Award
distribution from ChennaiOnline.
PANELS
There were 3 panel discussions during the day, I have just managed to cover below
the first panel on Emerging Trends in the Retail Industry.
Vivek Anand of FitnessOne talked about their emphasis on excellent
equipments, world class training to trainers, hygiene, etc. He talked new opportunities
that are available for Aesthetic & thrill seeking industry. And with the competition
from organized retail how existing stores are upgrading to new consumer experience
and the big opportunity here. He quoted that Top 10% of income group in India consume
30% of retail. A company can compete on price, compete on service, compete on
innovation - but you cannot compete on all three.
G.V.RaviShankar, VP of Sequoia Capital talked about speciality stores
like Coffee Day, Printo (Digital On demand printing)
Hemu Ramaiah, CEO of Landmark Books talked about how when she started
30 years back no one heard about Outsourcing. She talked about a list of emerging
outsource opportunities that budding Entrepreneurs can think of starting:
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Infrastructure (Property, Real Estate Broking, Project Management, Visual Merchandising)
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HR (Outsourcing Recruitment, Outsource People)
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Training (Even basic speaking is bad in India today, language, Skill Gaps)
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Store services (Housekeeping, Security, Software, Retail Auditing)
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Backoffice Operations / Logistics, Imports/Clearance, Buying (Sourcing Agents)
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Marketing (Analytics, Data Mining, Shopping trends and shopping habits, CRM, PR, Media
Design, Event Management, Web Design Outsourcing)
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Quality (ISO Certified, Balanced Score Card, Customer Satisfaction Survey)
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Banking & Finance (VC Funds, Business Plans)
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Travel/Tickets.
I enjoyed the last panel discussion moderated by K.Pandia Rajan, Ma Foi and
he did a wonderful job in that. I liked his quote of "Punarapi Jananam, Punarapi Maranam"
while saying talking about Serial Entrepreneurship. Other panelists in that session
were:
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Sharad Sharma, CEO, Yahoo! India R & D
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Srinivas Balasubramanian, Chairman & CEO, Photon Infotech
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Rajesh Jain, CEO Netcore
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Mahesh Murthy, Partner, SeedFund
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Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha
KEYNOTES
Captain Gopinath in his Keynote spoke about "Dare to Dream and
Do It. Most important for an entrepreneurship is to live it more than anything
else. To be Uncompromising & to listen to your inner voice. To Pursue that vision
to the exclusion of everything else". He spoke about how he grow from being Army Officer
to a Farmer of 40 Acres borrowed from his uncles in which he did Silk Farming, starting
an Helicopter company with an ex-army colleague when India had only 20 Helicopters
in civil sector and finally to his successful venture Air Deccan. He stressed on the
need to Dream big and act fast. Air Deccan collects more than USD 1 to 2
Million every day. Talked about how Accenture was slow to respond when Air Deccan
initially wanted them to build their e-ticketing software and then how they went with
a small software company for developing in the early days.
There were other keynotes as well made by the following eminent personalities during
the day.
It was educative to hear each Entrepreneurship's struggle to success story.
Mr.Thiagarajan's speech in Tamil (who was the exception to speak in Tamil, even CM
spoke in English) was disappointing as it was nothing more than an inaugural address
and was consumed in praising Tamilnadu CM.
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The last programme of TiECon yesterday was Pitch to VCs, several budding entrepreneurs
presented their case for seed capital. I was surprised when I was invited next on
stage to present on Vishwak's story (my good friend and our GM - Manigandan Gopalakrishnan
had listed my name without my consent :-)).
Doing an elevator pitch in 5 minutes for Vishwak which has 10 years of experience
and achievements is difficult. Hence I decided to be precise, to the point and highlighted
them in 6 buckets (headings).
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About Vishwak: When was it founded, what we do, number of people and locations
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Solutions: That we offer and the need they fulfill in the market
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Current Customers
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Current Structure and ownership
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Future plans of expansion
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Why we are bound to succeed?
I was happy on the way I pitched and the fact my message was received well by audience.
Of course, it will be fool-hardy to expect a deal from any investor with just a 5
minute pitch :-)
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Last
month I attended a SPIN Chennai program on Balanced
Scored by Mr.Sudipto Marjit. Offline when I was speaking with Mr.Marjit he noticed
the book I was reading (while waiting for the talk to start) - Profitable
Growth Is Everyone's Business by Mr.Ram Charan. Immediately he recommended that
I also read Ram Charan's What
the CEO wants you to know?. I did exactly that this week and here is the
review.
The first thing that strikes about the book (USD 20, INR 428) is its attractive title
and the second is its thin size (about 140 pages). Before I say anything about the
book I must say that this is a must read for anyone in any Business and it doesn't
matter whether you are working, managing or leading a business. Having said that the
book can be a let down if you had focused too much on its lofty title. The book should
have been titled "What everyone in business should know" or better "Quick start manual
for businesses" . Let me give you a brief review of the book's coverage:
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If you were wondering for a better term for saying "Business is in her blood" or "His
gutfeel on business" Ram Charan has coined a beautiful phrase "Business Acumen"
and he introduces the term and what it means very well.
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Introduction and simple english explanation to business speak like P/E Ratio, Return
on Assets, Sales Turnovers.
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He introduces an simple formulae of R = M x V, where R is return
on assets, M is After-Tax Margin and V is Velocity or Inventor turn. I found the way
he talked about Velocity as a very useful idea.
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Need to have Right People in Right Job, the importance of Coaching
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Ram Charan introduces one more term "Social Operating Mechanism"
which basically is how to motivate people at all levels and have them connected seamlessly
as a team all the time
Overall a must read for every business person. Thanks Mr.Marjit for recommending this
book.
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தமிழ் மையம் என்று ஒரு தன்னார்வ நிறுவனமும் (அந்த நிறுவனத்தின் ஆதி
மூலம் நமக்கு இங்கே தேவையில்லாததால் அதை விட்டுவிடுவோம்) தமிழக அரசின் சுற்றுலா
மற்றும் கலை வளர்ச்சித் (ஆம் இந்த துறைகள் கூட தமிழக அரசிலுள்ளது என்று நாம்
இந்த நிகழ்ச்சிகள் மூலம் தான் தெரிந்துக்கொள்ளலாம்) துறையும் போன வருடம் முதல் ஆண்டுத்தொரும்
நடத்தும் திருவிழா சென்னை சங்கமம். அதற்கு அழகான தலைப்புக் கொடுத்துள்ளார்கள் - திருவிழா
உங்கள் தெருவிழா.
சென்னை சங்கமம் சென்னையிலுள்ள பல்வேறுப் பூங்காக்களில் பொங்கல் நாட்களையொட்டி நடைப்பெறுகிறது.
அழிந்து வரும் கிராமிய கலைகளான - நடனம், தெருக்கூத்து, நாடகம், களரி, இசை, பாட்டு
இவைக்களுடன் இந்த ஆண்டு கிராமிய/மாவாட்ட உணவு வகைக்களையும் நகரமக்களுக்குக்
கொண்டுவரும் நல்ல முயர்சியாக இது எனக்குத் தொன்றியது. அதலால் நெரில்காண இன்று மைலாப்பூரிலுள்ள
நாகஸ்வராவ் பூங்காவில் நடந்த நிகழ்ச்சிகளைப் பார்க்கப் போனேன். அரசு நிகழ்ச்சியென்பதால்
அமைப்பு சுமாராக இருக்கும், கூட்டமே இருக்காது என்று எதிர்ப்பார்த்த எனக்கு இரண்டிலும்
மகிழ்ச்சியான ஏமாற்றம். நிகழ்ச்சி மேடை மற்றும் பூங்கா சுற்றிடம் (மக்கள் அமர வசதியாக
ஜமாக்களாங்கள் கூட போட்டு வைக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது) அழகாக அமைக்கப்பட்டு நல்ல முறையிலிருந்தது.
முட்டி மொதும் கூட்டமில்லையென்றாலும் ஒரு நூறு பேர் மேல் வந்திருப்பார்கள், நிகழ்ச்சிகளுக்கு
அவர்களிடம் நல்ல வரவேற்பு. ஒரு பூங்காவிலிருந்து இன்னொரு பூங்காவில் நடக்கும் நிகழ்ச்சிகளைப்
பார்க்கப் போக பஸ் வசதி கூடச் செய்யப்பட்டது மகிழ்ச்சி. பாராட்டுக்கள்.
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கி.மு.
கி.பி
., இது மதன் அவர்கள் எழுதி குமுதத்தில் வெளியான ஜாலியான சரித்திரத்
தொடர். எனது நண்பர் பத்ரி ஸேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் கிழக்கு
பதிப்பகம் இதைப் புத்தகமாக வெளியிட்டுள்ளது. நான் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தைக் காசுப்
போட்டு வாங்கவில்லை, போன வருடம் கேஸவன்
கம்புயூட்டர் நிறுவன விழாவில் ஓசியாகக் கிடைத்தது :-). அதனால் தான் என்னவோ இதைப்
படிக்க இவ்வளவு நாட்கள் ஆயிற்று.
சரித்திரத்தைக்கூடச் சுவையாகக் கொடுத்துள்ளார் மதன். அதற்கு அவரை நாம் பாராட்ட வேண்டும்.
ஆனால் தலைப்பை கி.மு. கி.பி. என்று வைத்துவிட்டு கிமுவில் நடந்ததை மட்டுமே எழுதியுள்ளார்
மதன். அடுத்த பாகம் வருமோ என்னவோ யார் கண்டார்?
நியாண்டர்தால் மற்றும் ஹோமோஸேபியன் என்று மனிதன் தோன்றியக் கதையில் ஆரம்பித்து, பாபிலோனியா,
எகிப்து, கிரேக்க நாகரிகங்களை விலாவாரியாகச் சொல்லி இந்தியாவின் மௌரியர்களின் வீழ்ச்சுயில்
புத்தகத்தை முடித்துள்ளார் மதன்.
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