3 Things I learned today

1. A million rupee on roads lifts an estimated 123 people out of poverty. In other words, a million rupee spent on roads can reduce poverty seven times more effectively than same spent on anti-poverty scheme.

Source: Imagining India by Nanadan Nilekani.

2. If I do not make the sale, I only have myself to blame.

Source: Bridging the Gap, Quoted by Jeffrey Gitomer.

3. Comparison between a Manager and Leader:

Manager (cost center IT): Concerned with process.

Leader (value adding IT): Concerned with results.

Source: Michael Schaffner

Where are you my precious?

I walked down the road,

Evening around 5 O'clock.

with ipod plugged in my ears,

insulated from the world,

this drizzle, reminded me

of an event which was so magical.

We crossed each other everyday,

exchanging fake smiles,

walking in anticipation,

Looking for moment or an excuse

to engage her in a conversation.

It never happened.

her eyes so black,

a Gold around her neck,

Everyday I saw bit more of her,

with courage not enough to talk to her.

I prepare myself everyday

For the next evening,

again we pass, staring

then smiling later frowning,

Ohh, what a beauty, that glow

She is the one, I know.

That day I decided,

No matter what, today,

I will pour out my heart,

I strolled down, rehearshing

the speech so well prepared.

She came, fresh like a flower

soaked in the evening drizzel,

We crossed, with our eyes locked

and stood staring at each other,

Talked about weather and things

which now I can't remember.

My universe stood still,

I watched as she talked mischievously,

with a rhythm in her body.

Till the Diamond in her finger

caught my attention.

"That must precious" I said

"more than my life" she replied.

Damn!! she is married,

heavens fell, she felt my grief,

"One day, we all find our precious"

She said with a charm so vivacious.

We walked away.

Taking a breath, I pondered

Pearl in Oyster lost in deep waters,

waiting to be discovered

Where are you my precious?

Randoms

With most of the action happening at work , I am thoughtless and have absolutely nothing to  write:- 

I take my daily  train from Metropark station in NJ to  Rahway, every day  I see hundreds of desi's and after spending almost 3 months now most of the faces are familiar. The  majority of population here are south Indian and I love to  follow the conversation that happen between  NRIs.  

NRI 1 : "Hi, Whats Up?"

NRI 2  Just nodding, I guess it means he is fine

NRI 1: "So you live here ..nearby.. only??"

Every sentence must end with 'Only'.  The train is never on time ...only. You can't install this component ..only. And it get better when Women talk- I called my  in laws this morning...only.

And for others specially  with  North Indians... every  sentence must  start with a big "No"  even if it means 'yes'.

No..no...you know...you are right..we should do it this way .. only

I see a lot of stories at this station, so many people who have came from the other side of the globe to live an American dream. They live a very temporary life here hoping that one day they will pack there bags and will go home. But, things gets complicated as they stay, the market is not good, the mortgage must be paid, kids education. I find it so unusual when I see a kid with quintessential Indian upbringing  having an American accent. The dreams that their parents have...which is Indian so far from reality. 

I love staring at people , yes, let me admit over here. I often get  inquisitive when i see a stranger and start imaging there story. So  when  people must have Ipods and Iphones to spend time while waiting for train or bus ...for me the time flies by  staring at them and thinking whats going on in their mind.

After procrastinating and perendinating for months I finally  started jogging  last week. The weather has  improved and the cricket season in new jersey  has started and I really want to be fit so that I can enjoy these games ... well its fun and I will surely  learn some Tamil this time. 

I am still reading Nandan Nilekani's Imagining  India. Apart from the ideas he had put across the one that impacted me most is his story where he tells that if he had not joined Infosys and took that risk in his life he would still be a regular Indian taking a daily train to  NYC, that's my fear.  I am scared of being 'regular'.

Why working 4 days a week is good for economy?

One a fine Thursday morning, I finally got up at 6 AM after snoozing my cell phone alarm for an hour and while staring  at my own face in the bathroom mirror, a thought sparked in my sleepy mind: 

Won't it be good if we had to  work for only 4 days a week? Every week we had Friday, Saturday and Sundays off. A four day work  week  and  a long weekend every week. 

Personally I am exhausted by EOD Thursday, I do go to office on Fridays and work but I see  that all major decisions are often  postponed for Monday and mostly  the productivity is equivalent to zero after lunch. But this might sound like an excuse coming from a sloth who never wants to work(Oh BTW I love my work). So, I started thinking more about it here are some of the arguments I came up with:- 

1.  The economy is bad, money is not flowing in the market and people are not willing to spend. I hardly spend on weekdays and all the expenditures are postponed till  weekend and this is true for most of the people who have a job and work  from 8AM to 5PM. If we give another day off people will  spend more. What will they do when they have 3 days a week off? plan more trips with family, eat out more, spend more... credit will start flowing again and economy will finally start moving north.

2.  The productivity  will increase. Yes it will . Regardless of how many hours we work in a week most tasks are going to get accomplished each week just as they did before, we just need to be more efficient in working and reduce the times we spend in coffee, cellphone, Internet browsing, personal mails and gossiping. And a long weekend is surely a motivation to work more.

3. Working parents get more time to spend with kids, they will be able to read to them, play with them... it means more happy kids and more happy parent and happier employees >> more productivity and better office environment. Goes very well with Obama's Idea of Education reforms. 

4. Fours days week is  also a Green concept. We spent less on travelling, consume less fuel, save a lot on oil cost to the country. Low emission of green house gases. Less traffic on roads. Just imagine how much fossil fuel will be saved if the entire world travel one day less to work. Not only this, we will save electricity, paper(less paper cups consumed for coffee and tea), parking... 

5. Will boost tourism, most of the tourist are locals in any country . 

Well, these are just the few reason that came to my mind. Excited by the idea, I started sharing it with people, my room partner ridiculed it saying it means a lost in productive hours every week and eventually people will start treating Thursdays as Fridays. The project manager laughed at it and said its a good Idea and advice to post it on the blog and I am doing it . Few appreciated it.  

I started browsing the net and came across this very interesting article by Prof.Goose who shares my view and came with  Sixteen Reasons why this might be an Idea whose time has come. Read it and you have more reason to believe why you should be working 4 days a week . 

Green Applications

I am very  fond of WordWeb and have been using it very  frequently since Somya introduced it to me sometime back . As not all  the good things in world are free, my trial version expired yesterday and before I could continue using it, WordWeb asked me to answer the following: 

How frequently do you fly In a commercial Airline in a year?

• Zero
  
• 1 return flight
  
• more than 1 return flight

Well, Courtesy my profile and my company I have to  take more than one return flight in a year and I honestly chose the 3rd option only to get a shocker from wordweb

Wordweb is only available for free to the people who fly very little because two medium-distance flight is equivalent to  more than one tonne CO2 emission, more than sustainable fper-person  limit for an year. The licensing model is designed to allow relatively non-wealthy people to use the program free of charge, and to provide a small incentive for other people who fly a lot to cut down. 

I get the message the WordWeb is trying to convey though its Green application and may be that's the way to go ahead,but as an end user what should I do if every application on the web turns 'Green'? 

• Quit my  job and stop travelling?
  
• Pay money to wordweb because my company makes me fly more often?
  
• Advise my company to make me sail through a boat across seven Seas... 4 times a year!!?

OR

• Uninstall  the application and reinstall being cognizant of the Licensing  policies and the off course the intent of the message. 
  

I think I got the answer.

A take on current Crisis.

If the economy continues  this way, Obama keeps trying his best to  delay the inevitable. Offshoring trends are taxed, the pioneers of globalization decides to step back. Americans do not rise up the value chain, instead they start  putting  the blame  on  Indians, Koreans and Chinese for there misery ...How should we respond? 

 In his recent article The Open-Door Bailout,  the award winning Author and Journalist of NY Times, Thomas Friedman  points out that one of the bright ways of stimulate the economy is to leave it to the 'brainy Indians'. This is what he says-

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans, they will buy up all the subprime homes, work 18 hours a day to pay for them, immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And They will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans"

He was highly criticized for pro-immigration views  and very soon after that Obama imposed tax cuts for companies offshoring jobs. But will it  impact the offshoring trends? 

The entire financial sector is in mess, the last thing they want is  a rise in there operating cost. The Pharma sector is already  competing over low cost drugs and the lack of blockbusters in recent years have forced them to optimize operations. No wonder some of the recent big IT offshoring deals are from Pharma sector. 

If changing the IT vendor was so easy, How many customers dumped Satyam after the recent scandal? None. Zero. Zilch .Zip. The cost of transition is too high for these companies. And some how there is a faith that Satyam will come up from its mess. One thing that all  India IT companies are good at is transforming and continuously changing there business model. We have came a long  way from  Y2K to  Complete Service offering. From BPO to Business transformation.  But offshoring will be affected. All  we need to do is a have a solid plan B:- 

• Diversify, the companies will have to seriously think outside Cost arbitrage. No matter how much we claim, we are still  not there. 
  
• Go Global, Hire more local workers make them work with there offshore counter parts 24*7. 
  
• Innovate at home. Look Within. The reverse in trend is good news for India. For us its always been easier to work for US companies than to work for Indian state. Things will change now as we will be forced to Innovate.

And for the H1Bs who thought that America is the only place  "to be", time to  go home may soon arrive and may be that is the best thing to  happen as India is the place where all the action is taking place. 

In Transit –Yet again

Sometimes it is so difficult to capture moments, moments which make remarkable impact in life.

Why is it so? I think the answer is otherwise, perhaps only artists and Poets have this gift. Capturing moments in words weaved beautifully or painted vividly. I don't have this gift, no wonder the most impactful events went undocumented.

So, where I am right now? At London Heathrow international airport waiting for my connecting flight for Newark, USA. Yet again on another engaging assignment for much longer duration.

How do I feel this time? More clam, unlike other trips, where nervousness and anxiety took over.

How do I feel about my stay? I think I am prepared to stay long this time. A solid reason is that I am going to a familiar place and living with a good friend and looking forward to the super bawl party at his place!

Anything new you learnt about yourself in between trips? Yes, whenever my neck hurts it means I am tensed and stressed!

Best thing about this trip? Managed to befriend a really pretty airhostess in British Airways, an Indian with an amazing British Accent first time I was awed by the voice more than the aesthetics!