IT Lingo

January 3rd, 2011 | Biz Blogs | 1 Comment »

Just a quick reference for people new to IT or new to popular ways of communication in IT world.

afaik – as far as I know

asap – as soon as possible

aeap – as early as possible

eod — end of day

eob — End of business (means before you leave office)

eom – End of message (usually written in subject line to indicate there is no need to open the mail)

Do you have the bandwidth ?

-          Do you have time for  a new task

What’s on your plate?

-          What are the tasks you are working on

Go Dutch  — Pay for yourself.

Are we on the same page?

-          Do you think we both know and understand the same thing? Or is there any confusion or difference in our understanding?

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Failure of a success

October 29th, 2010 | Biz Blogs | 1 Comment »

Recently, I made a ground breaking presentation for my organization. It won the first prize in the internal competition and I received an awesome lot of appreciation from top management and external judges. But, having all that doesn’t make me happy. I fell too short of my own expectations. I had made huge efforts for it. Only creating the presentation took over 30 hours. It was an awesome lot that I wanted to say through it. And I did. And it was a good one. But, I feel as if I failed to deliver a perfect one. It was a rare opportunity for me to prove something to myself. And I failed.


It is perhaps good, that at least I have higher expectations from myself, than anyone else. There are two comments from the judges that made all appreciation pale for me:


1. The focus of ppt was not on the Topic: When he asked me which is one slide that depics “Impact of social media”, my answer was incorrect. I told him “How it works” instead of “Yield”. That is what he wanted to know. I forgot to think from a User’s angle all the while. However fabulous teh presentation be it has to be completely focussed on what audience wants.


2. The presentation was “I” centric: Intermittently I forgot to use “We” when I should have (which is all the time). The leader has to be magnanimous. He has to put team first. He has to express more credit to the team than you think they deserve. Team is important because it is team synergy which attracts success. There is always an exceptional team behind every one man show.


Anyway, I’ve learnt the lesson, and won the prize. A very unique failure of success story.
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Color and Form

August 6th, 2010 | Biz Blogs | 1 Comment »

I just co-authored another e-book at Triiibes. It was great to debut as a co-editor for the e-book with Bron from UK. I learnt two things -

1) Perceptions are different across the world but there still is something a lot common in all of us.

2) Everyone needs an editor. :-)

It’s a collection of very abstract essays about how we perceive the word COLOR and FORM. If you like to read abstract articles, you’d like this one.

Click here to download or read online.

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What you can do now? – Here’s how

January 17th, 2010 | Biz Blogs | 3 Comments »

After reading Seth Godin’s ‘What Matters Now‘, A group of leaders and marketers on Seth’s private network triiibes thought about bringing up a few pointers on What is the need of the hour. What can each one of us do – to bring that missing Magic in our lives.

The book “What you can do now? - Here’s how is about Action. It’s your manual for action in 2010. Choose your pick of the 30 odd entries and try to implement a thing today. You can take one each day. I bet you’d find yourself in a 5x better position after a Month.

Do feel free to download the eBook, share with your friends and leave your comments here.

Here’s to your Change and Success!!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25344954/Do-Now-Here-s-How

PS: Entry #17 is from ‘yours truly’ :-) Enjoy!!! Share!!! Comment!!!

Chick here to download!

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Top 5 Questions about mobile development

December 15th, 2009 | Technical Blogs | 3 Comments »

Here are the five questions you should answer before you start taking your business to mobile.

1. Why do you want to bring your enterprise software to mobile?

Is your concept based on Mobile or are you bringing an existing business to mobile. If it is an existing business you should analyze how going mobile can help you.

2. Will it significantly affect the Product/ Productivity/ Profit/ Popularity?

Mobile development should significantly affect you or your users in one of the mentioned ways. It might make your product user friendly, make the users more efficient. Or It may increase your popularity and profits. Though investment is not big, taking account of the ROI is a good idea.

3. What smartphone devices will your users have?

Mostly all Smart phones provide similar features. Some basic pointers are if you want to access high-end professionals, business people, Doctors, CEOs, Vice-Prez they are mostly (RIM) BlackBerry and Windows Mobile users. While if you are looking at young populace iPhone and Android are gaining popularity. If you are planning to provide devices and software to your own employees or associates, you will need to consider other criterion based on your exact need and budget.

4. Will your application be Native or Web-based?

Native applications are applications that are downloaded on the device and are accessible by clicking the applications icon on the device.

Web application on the other hand are simply the Websites optimized for use on mobile.

You need to carefully understand the differences in the two types and decide on one or both. Typically if you would just want to extend your website to mobile you can get it optimized as a web app. If, in the other case, you are convinced that having a Native app will affect your Productivity/Profit/Popularity.

5. Which smart phone feature(s) can you leverage?

Smart phones have features like Camera, GPS, Touch Screen, WiFi, eMail, USB and VGA Connector, accelerometer. You should acquaint yourself with these and try to find out how you can leverage some or all of these features to your benefit. For example GPS can provide you with your location and speed with which you are traveling. Accelerometer can jazz up your application by utilizing quick movements of user. Touch screen can be used to implement various gestures and make your application pleasantly interactive for the user.

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Introduction to Mobile development

November 25th, 2009 | Technical Blogs | Comments Off

Wow! After a huge gap of being able to add something for the ideakosh, I decided I would resume my tech and Biz blogging with a series of posts on Mobile development and particularly iPhone development. Enterprise software are now going mobile and everyone wants to do their work on-the-go. I don’t know what they will do sitting in office then. Jokes apart, it is a huge facility to be able to gather information in real time and particularly in most usable formats. A user using Google Maps on iPhone to take driving directions to reach the most happening place in his neighborhood is unaware of the hundreds of satellites running around over his head, and the thousand-splendid-not-sun engineers that created the hardware and softwares for iPhone. But he is still empowered to use that intuitive interface to check availability and buy tickets for that event on the go. If he is not sure about conveyance, he might as well search for nearest mass transit stations, or even car pooler’s pick-up point. Then on his way back he may upload the pictures and videos he took during the event and share them with his online community- or the world. Behind that empowered user, are the empowered developers like me who are now able to create that state of the art applications. What you can think, you can create. Almost. So as every software development requires, mobile applications also require an organized development process.

Should I go mobile or should I not?

Mobile development is not a cheap exercise. If not planned properly it can be a really costly affair. A typical iPhone application using server components for data storage and processing can cost you around USD 20000. Though it can be as low as 2000 USDs and as high as 100000 USDs or more depending on your need and budget. Before you can think about bringing your enterprise software to mobile, you should be asking yourself a few very important questions about the business need, added value and ROI. If you are convinced to go mobile you should analyze your clientele to decide what mobile devices and technologies serve your interests most effectively. Then you can decide if the mobile application needs to be web based or native. And so on and so forth until you get into the intricacies of application. Because of limited processing and storage ability of Mobile devices, Mobile application generally requires a server side component to be prepared so that the data storage and processing can be done on huge and fast servers. This is an added but compulsory cost and is often ignored while planning for mobile applications.

To conclude the introduction, I would like to aver that taking your enterprise software to mobile can work wonders if planned effectively, making informed decisions at every step. You can leave your concerns and queries as comments, I’d get to them within a day.


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Blogging for absolute beginners

August 4th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | Comments Off

Here are a few FAQs about blogging. Fortunately lot of people ask me a lot of questions about blogging and I thought it would be best if I can point them to a single post that deals with some of their concerns. Here it goes…
What is a blog?
Blog is a simple web interface where a person can add text, pictures and videos and share it with others. Various websites like blog.comwordpress.com and blogger.com provide free and paid options to host your blogs.
Why blogging?
There are plenty of reasons for why people blog. Here is a quick take on why all infopreneurs should blog.
What to blog about?
That is one of the basic questions that every newbie inspired to blog asks first. I have tried to compile a few suggestions that will help you get some direction in this regard. More
How much to blog?
Now that seems like a personal choice, and it is indeed(for some cases), but being effective and regular needs you to write pithy posts. More
Who should and ‘should not’ blog?
If you are not getting enough motivation to blog, you perhaps should just stop blogging for a while. Starting from square one, it is great idea to rethink your perspective. Why do you think you need to blog? When you say it is a personal choice, put some thought before deciding. Read this.
How to create and launch the blog for maximum benefit?
A lot of people would start worrying about readership from day one. I put one of my favorite creations on the blog and I expected a whole lot of readers. Yes there were a lot of visitors, but I could not convert them to readers. I learnt the lessons the hard way. But you can start in a much easier and more effective way.
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How do I motivate myself to blog?

August 3rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | Comments Off


If you are asking this – You Should Not Blog!

Because you don’t have your basics right yet. It’s neither your social duty to blog, nor a religious obligation and certainly doesn’t affect national interests. So don’t bother about it. Just know that it can help you in variety of ways:

1. If you are sick of your job and want to do something that you Love-to-do, Blogging can help. It’s Free and Easy. Even if you are not sure of what your passion is, Blogging can help you find that. Just try out a few things, first and observe your interest levels. Keep taking feedback from your friends and colleagues.

2. If you do not know what you love to do, blogging can help you find your passion. Blogging is a simple mode of expression. When you start expressing, you are bound to get better at it. 

3. If you want to build a brand of Yourself or your Organization blogging is an effective way. 

4. If you want to establish a business that needs you to connect with a lot of people. 

5. If you want/need to connect with people with certain specific (may be rare) skills. 

When you’d understand the importance of blogging, you’d definitely get the motivation to do it. Just like every other thing, you have to do it to learn it. And just like every other thing, the more you do it the better you’d get. You neither need heavy investment nor a huge plan. Just do it, start it now and launch it to public in a way that it helps you and your readers.    

If Playing Sports is what you love-to-do – Go out in the sun and play. Blogging is not for you. 

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Evolution of a blogger!

July 31st, 2009 | Biz Blogs | Comments Off

[Evolution of one of the most influential personalities online]

I followed Seth Godin’s posts from the blog since 2002. Yes, I read most of them. And here is what I observed - 

1. Quality - Seth’s blogging has evolved from being mundane chronicles to interesting ideas to inspirational sermons. And that simply signifies that the more you do it, the better you get. I had been looking for one-liners from his blogs for Sethisms. And to my wonder it was extremely difficult to find them in his earlier posts. There wasn’t the charisma. Infact (God save me!) I am daring to offend the god-in-seth, many posts are plain boring.  

2. Style - Those of us who admire Seth’s typical pithy blogging style should visit his March 2002 archive. One of the posts is over 4500 words. Yes you read it right. A full ten page report on a blog post. Impossible says I’m possible. 

3. Quantity - I have been wondering how does Seth manage to blog daily. That is another habit he has created over time. He used to be inconsistent (ranging from daily to fortnightly) and infrequent in his initial years.   

4. Followers - I have no stats for this one (can someone provide?), but I reckon, from the traceback counts that He didn’t start as one of the most influential blogger online. He has built it over these 7 years. 

This should take a lot of load off rookies (like me) and teach them some patience. Phew!

What we can learn from this is that the Best that we see in the world is not made in a day. Blogging is like farming. You sow the seeds of valuable content, you connect with people and nourish your readership, you protect it against spams and it’s then that you’d be able to enjoy the harvest. Happy Blogging!
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Sethisms – from the God-in-Seth

July 30th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

One liners have always been thought inspiring and helpful for me. I’ve been following Seth for about an year now. I just thought, it would be great to share his pithy power packed thoughts with everyone. So here is Seth on various topics: (taken from his blogs)  

Startups: Being the dumbest partner in a room of smart people is exactly where you want to be.

Excellence: So, if there’s time for an emergency (Jello), why isn’t there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?

Work: When you’re gone, will they miss what you do? It’s not too late to change the answer…

Marketing: The only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can.

Buying: “..people end up buying the thing they want, not the thing they necessarily need.” - 

Customers: If you don’t like the way someone is acting, understand you can’t change his behavior, you can only change his circumstances.

Marketing: It’s not the data that people seek, it’s the mood.

Aim: If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true?

Boss: Trying to convince a CEO of anything is a little like trying to convince a cop not to give you a ticket. It’s possible, but rarely worth the effort, given the odds.

Humility: “You are right. I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

Organization: Transparency works if it’s authentic.

Performance: Interesting business lesson learned on a bicycle: it’s very difficult to improve your performance on the downhills.

Change: Change is a bear, but it’s better than death. 

Marketers: all marketers are now on an island

Marketing: We market to friends very differently than we market to strangers.

Marketing: Big marketing breakthroughs always come from doing something that everyone else says is off the table.

Psychology: We notice what we choose to notice.

Focus: Do you have an agenda? 

Mistakes: Retractions let your marketing (and your entire organization) move forward even after you’ve made a mistake. 

Decisions: A knife usually cuts through the clutter better than a spoon.

Recruiting: If you want to hire a copywriter, do some copywriting.

Outsourcing: Safe is Risky.

Permission Marketing: Permission is like dating. You don’t start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit.

Success: If there were shortcuts, people smarter than you and me would have found them already. 

Sales: Every bad sale costs you five. 

I’d hang it on my desk. If you happen to print them on your T-shirt, send me one too. :-)

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