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Two mistakes and an inspiring story

Well, I accept that I couldn't spend much time at this place, off late. This month has been very tight and I could get break only for 3 days in the whole of 30 days of this month. One way its good - I could meet more number of people, and make more money ;-). On the other hand its bad - I couldn't meet most of my regular people that includes my family.

Whats to share with you, now? I am not eligible for talking anything about the terror attack on Mumbai. I am not eligible to talk any thing about the attack because, like many others, I too think very emotionally for couple of days whenever such tragedy occurs, talk very big things and later forget about all this once we get back to the comforts of the day to day life. At the height of Kargil war, I named my second son (Amol Sriram) after slain hero Lt. Col. Amol Kalia. I promised myself that I want to do some thing in such way that both of my sons would do something good for our motherland. But, frankly, I do not think I am doing anything in that direction. Let me not blame it on anyone. I hope, at least this attack reminds me few of my forgotten promises that I made to myself and strenghten the resolve for doing something good.

Should I talk about the current state of the industry? Not either. Really I haven't tracked it in the last one month other than giving cursory looks at the headings that talk about 'reduced confidence levels, pink slips, revised targets' and etc., The perception is that we are heading for the worst and it may take couple of years to recover. But its just perception, for me, at this point of time. I do not have figures and a reference point. So let me not say anything about it.

Se what's left? Let me tell you about a person. Let me call her 'Minu', its not real name. I met her around an year back. She was good at her studies and also good at other activities. But the drawback was that she was little arrogant. I always used to think she could do even better but never tried to share my thoughts with her. I told you already, she was little arrogant. And slowly I lost her contact as well.

All of a sudden, she is back in picture, few weeks back. She shared what happened in the last few months in her personal life. I was stunned. I was stunned not because of what happened to her. I stunnded at my ignorance about the other side of the coin and biased thinking.

I still maintain that she was little arrogant. But, I mistakenly attributed every thing about her to just that - arrogance. But in reality, she had been under tremedous pressure from her personal issues and her life was virtually out of her control. She had to fight with her family, friends, her own wishes, her own goals ... all most every where she had to fight and uncharecteristically she had to compromise in all most all of her personal matters. She was fighting loosing a battle. We never knew ... I didn't have even a single clue. And some where, she lost most of her dreams. It was a truma.

Now I am really happy to see that she is trying to reconstruct her life. She is hardly into her early 20's. But, the way she is trying to forget the past and build a new life for herself is really impressive. Only people with strong mental abilities can recover this fast. I am sure she will be successfull. She is not short of talent, not short of abilities, not short of spirit. She will be successful.

Why I am telling this story? For two reasons. This story reminds me two of the mistakes that we generally commit.

One of judging others without really knowing about them. Its very tempting to pass judgements about others and branding them as 'good', 'bad' and etc. We all know that we never know fully about others (for that matter, we may not even know fully about ourselves). Still, we commit the mistake of passing comments. We do not get an opportunity to realize how painful it is for the person who is receiving them.

Second mistake is about 'not taking care of the people who are not so good at us'. Let me explain. We generally tend to spend more time with people who give us lot of importance and with whom we are comfortable. And we generally tend to avoid the people who we feel 'not so good'. Our perception may be just perception or may be real. Still, I guess, we should not 'leave' those people. No one want to be 'not good'. Every one wishes to be appreciated. If we just show little more patience, spend more time with those 'no so good at us' people, we really can build good relationship with them and do lot of good for all of us.

I accept that I made these two mistakes in the case of Minu. Fine, life is the best teacher, for all of us. Let me learn few things out of this and not forget them again.

I wish Minu a great success that can make her family, friends and others happy about her. I request you also wish the same for Minu and many other such spirited fighters.

Speically for the friends at Chennai

Folks,

Hope you are doing fine and getting prepared for Diwali vacation. I am already on vacation ... not signing for any program till end of this month from tomorrow onwards. Want to work on my portal and getting it ready at the earliest.

Guess some of you might be upset with me as I was not able to respond to your mails/calls in the past few days. Extremely sorry for that. You know, I can not erase the past but at least I will try not to repeat it. I attribute my lack of communication with the loads of work that I had to clear. Not sure if you believe it or not, but I slept only for 3 hours a day on an average in the month of October so far. I had assignments Mon to Fri in Bangalore and Sat & Sun in Chennai. Its all preparation, travel, classes and nothing else :-)

Fine, I trust you do not need any more explanation to believe me.

How are the things moving at your place? I hear that many of you have been allocated to projects or being called for interviews. As expected, I found that few of you are asked to work on technologies that you never worked on earlier. Its the way of life. Lets face it. Especially when the rest of the industry is facing severe uncertainty, you should be more careful at accepting/rejecting the offers made to you, whatever it may be. I must say that you are really fortunate to be with your organization at this point of time. The trees that are flexible survive rough whether, not the tall or bulky ones. Learn to be flexible and align with the organizational goals. Whoever listen to the needs of the organization are the ones who will be listened to when they are in need. Support your management and customers. Sometimes, we may not get what we may like, but once we develop affection to what we do, we like every thing that comes in our way.

Apart from emotional preparation, you will have to prepare well in handling new technologies when you are on the project. The ways may be different for learning different technologies. However, the underlying theme is always this: Learn by doing mistakes and questioning every statement. Never look for handholding. By questioning the statements made, you are not denying them rather you are trying to understand them from different perspectives. By doing mistakes you are not failing, rather you are trying to understand which of your assumptions are wrong.

Another common way of quickly learning a new technology is by sharing your learning and discussions. Try to share whatever you learn to the other person; the questions that he/she asks would stir up new thoughts in you ... which leads to wholesome understanding of the technology. By discussion, you can quicken the learning.

I am sure you all know it ... there is nothing new in what I am saying. However, I wish my words make you more conscious in whatever you are doing.

I have learned a great deal of AJAX and its related technologies in the past few weeks. I say, confidently, that I know more now, compared to what I know a month back. How can it be other way around when I have people like you?

Specially for my students at Sasi

Folks,

Hope you are doing fine and remember me. I am fine and enjoying nice weather at Bangalore :-)

It has been long since I spoke to many of you. As I have said many times earlier, you all have a special place in my heart (not just in career) as you were my first few students and you have tremendous influence on the way I live since met you people. Being busy at work I am not able to spend time for you, otherwise I never forget you wonderful kids.

Hope your studies are going well. While I never subscribe to the idea of focusing only on studies, we all know, that your performance at studies make or break your other dreams. It may look like I am repeating, but let me say it once again: do not study only for the sake of marks. Try to understand the big picture and relate what you are learning to that picture. Nothing in this world exist in isolation. Everything is related to every other thing ... directly or indirectly ... some times very tightly and some times fragile. Your syllabus pressure may not allow you to look into other sources of information, but whenever you get a chance, see if you can get the other perspectives on the topics that you are working on. For example, when you read a Java text book, it may talk about all of its virtues, but get in insight from who actually uses Java and try to understand its short comings and other alternatives as well. Only then you can really know what is Java. This is just an example.

I guess every other person you meet may give you a lecture on studies. Why again I should bother you? Let me tell you about what I am doing.

Ever since I returned to Bangalore from Tadepalligudem, I have been shaping myself as a corporate trainer and consultant. After spending few months with you, I found that I am more useful to this world as a teacher/trainer/mentor rather than as a manager or corporate person. I told you that you have strong influence on my current life. Of course, I am passionate about technology but now I am equally enjoying in training others in technology. Frankly, I do not want to make it as a career for money. But you know, I am not that rich and I will have to do it for few more years :-) Once I find other avenues for financial resources, I would like to carry this as a social commitment. I am currently aiming to build a business around technology in the next couple of years. Let me see how far I will succeed in it.

Recently I have worked with few engineers from IFlex and Polaris. One profound observation is that many of the successful people who made it into good positions at various organizations are actually from rural and semi-urban areas. They are not born city dwellers or having English speaking parents. Yet, they are no less self-confident, self-driven, self-critics than others. I hope you cultivate those personal strengths and bring good name and fame to your parents, teachers and whom ever you love.

Thats all for now. Drop a mail in your free time. I will keep writing to you whenever I have something to share with you. I am not having the mail-id of all the people whom I wish you to contact. I am posting this mail to my blog with the hope that it reaches them as well on one fine day.

Cracks in Software Industry?

I have received good number of mails, especially from the college students in the last one week regarding the health of software industry. Its seems there is lot of talk going on in the colleges and what I see is lot of misinformation is getting propagated. Let me address all those students, here.

When we discuss this kind of issues, we should not mix objective facts with the subjective opinions. The fact is that the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) industry in the US is facing rough weather because of what is known as Sub Prime crises. Its not that important to understand the problem in greater detail. But, it is important to understand that money is what flows across all kinds of businesses and if there is a problem at some corner, it impacts the parts as well. The intensity and timing may be little different.

The impact of this turmoil in the US financial markets has its impact on IT industry as well. It’s in two different ways.

One is direct: around 40% of the business of IT major companies in India deals with BFSI industry. So, these IT companies would surely get impacted. They may loose few of their projects or may not get good number of new projects.

The other one is indirect: As money is what fuses life into any business, problem in the securities market would impact lot of businesses. For example, if a company wants to expand its business by going for an IPO, it may find it little difficult now. So, expansion may be postponed at least for some time. There are several other these kinds of scenarios which basically slows down the growth. So, our IT companies, like any other related industry, may not get good number of new orders.

Now, panic is the response for this? This is my opinion: Certainly no.

This is part of what we call as economic cycles. Economies (world or national) raise and fall and raise and it goes on. When economy goes very strong, every one tries to expand, so we get good number jobs and salaries. Also, as every one is in the rush of grabbing more, we may also tend to ignore few fundamentals. When economy shrinks, every one tries to cut the cost, so we may loose jobs and may not get new jobs. That’s the bad part.

But, still we can see something good in it. When economy is going week, every one tries to for the "best" in terms of productivity, efficiency, performance, maintenance ... because we want best deal for whatever limited money we have. What it means? It asks for new ideas, new processes, new technologies and etc., Lot of "bogus", "mismanaged", "inefficient" companies gets weeded out. Only worthy players remain in the market. Lot of clean-up happens, which is good.

It depends on which part of the glass you are looking at. Are you looking at the half-filled glass or half-empty glass?

As a student, we should never bother about the jobs. That’s just one of the by-product of our learning. Just keep on learning. Learn technologies. Learn soft skills. Learn things that fascinate you. Enjoy learning. That makes you best in the breed. And you kind of people always get the due recognition. The opportunity comes and knocks at the door of only prepared minds. Prepare for the worst, you get the best. This must be the case irrespective of the good or bad phase of economy we are in.

One more fact is that, in Bangalore alone there are around 3,50,000 software engineers work for various companies.You can think of how many are there in India (I do not know the actual figure). We are hearing job cuts in terms of just few thousands. Sure, there is a problem, but panic is not the answer. Don't get panic and loose your confidence.

If someone says software industry is collapsing, that’s a bit of exaggeration. That’s not going to happen, at least, in the nearest future. Moreover, exactly opposite may happen. Look at what happened during the days of Y2K and Dotcom bust in 2001. It’s all part of life. Be prepared for it. With preparation, you can face any thing.

Let me repeat. Preparation is the key. Do your best as a student, the rest is taken care. For that matter, we are all, inside and outside of the colleges, are students. Isn't it?

Prioritization is the key

For the last few years, I see myself spending more time with people who are in the age group of 20-24 years. When I was at Cisco and Sudhari, most of my colleagues were fresh from college. Later when I was teaching at SITE, naturally I had spent good amount of time with the undergraduate engineering students. And now, as a training consultant, still I engaged more with the people of this age group.

I must say, these people are really wonderful. Many of them wanted to do something, but only few people know what is that they actually wanted to do. People usually ask me one of these two questions:

1. I wanted to do something really great. Suggest me what I should do.
2. I have lots of ideas, but the time is limited to work on them. And there are lots of contrasting demands. I am not able to focus.

While the first question should have a context based answer, the second question, fortunately, has an answer that fits into most of the situations. Let me discuss this point here.

First is that one should feel proud for having those many ideas or for having zeal to work on those many ideas. Naturally, time is in limited supply, for anybody. Even God has only 24 hours (if he lives on the mother Earth). How can we get maximum out of these 24 hours? Here is the one word solution: Prioritization.

One thing we have to remember is that we can not do all the things at once. We have to pick up of fewer number of tasks at a time, focus on them, complete them and then move on to the next set of tasks. The question again comes: Which of the tasks should be picked up? The answer is simple: Pick up the most urgent tasks which you can not delay any further. In fact there is nothing like a choice exists as far as urgent tasks are concerned. We are forced to take on urgent tasks, there is no other go.

Then if every one is picking up their urgent tasks, how only few of us are succeeding in completing them? Nice question. This is what I can say.

The tasks that are urgent need not be our most favorite tasks. We may get distracted to other 'interesting' things at the cost of the current work. This has to be taken care.

Here is the other failure factor: There may be a difficult task in pending state just because its not urgent. We may get nightmares whenever we think about that difficult task. Eventhough we work on other urgent tasks right now, part of the mind always goes around that difficult task. We get tempted to spend sometime on that task at the cost of the current work. It always leads to suboptimal results. Lesson to be learnt is that when you are working on a taks, be single minded. Complete it before you spend any quality time on anything else. We should not feel anxiety or irritation because of other other pending tasks. They will get their attention, once you complete the current work. So don't bother about them, now.

Having said that, I must say, we should actually make sure that no work slips into "urgency" zone. If we take enough care when that work was not urgent, it never gets into this firefighting zone. Spend some time daily on the important but not urgent tasks, as a habit. Activities like reading books, networking with people, getting reskilled and etc fall under this category. Couple of hours every day on these activities saves lot of time in future.

Here is the summary of what I wanted to say:

1. As a habit, spend 1-2 hours on activites that fetch long term results. They are not forced on you. So, you should have real commitment in working on them.
2. When some thing is really urgent, give maximum attention to it. Don't bother about the other things. They will get their due attention, later.
3. Always do one task at a time. Multitasking is good, but only when you are really good at it.
4. If there is lot of work, all of sudden, don't get irritated or stressed. Prioritize them and win one at a time.
5. Remain cool and have confidence in yourself. If you practice it at this age, it becomes part and parcel of your personality.

Music of Morning

I guess I am in heavens, right now. After long long gap, I got time and interest to listen to Kishore Kumar songs. Not only that, almost for two hours, in the evening, the whole family spent time in singing songs. I am not saying that we are good singers ... but we all like it. Its brings all of four more closer.

When it comes to taste, I found my younger kid comes very close to me. He also likes the songs that I like more, "Ye jeevan hain, is jeevan kaa", "mere saamnewaale khidikee main", "jhookar mere man ko", Mukhesh and Mannade songs of Anand, Kishore songs of Golmaal, Jesdaas songs .... he enjoyed very much.

A wonderful Sunday is about to conclude this way. Morning kids and I went for a walk around the lake in front of our apartment. When we moved into this place, Pai Layout on Old Madras Road, back in 2002, the lake was not this beautiful. Now lot of work has been done in terms of plantation and maintenance.

The pleasant morning coupled with cloudy sky, cool breeze, greenish surroundings, the cranes and several other birds in the lake, and trains on the other side of the lake ... woh! I can't ask for more than this.

As my saturday was spoiled in the traffic yesterday, we went for a weekly outing today instead. But, just to the nearest game zone in the Big Bazaar. I do not generally enjoy playing vedio games or other such things. However, I also played with my kids today. Frankly, I do not know the name of the game I played. But enjoyed a lot. Of course, enjoyed radio city and SFM too in the traffic jams . We took an hour to pass just 1 kilo meter :-)

Mmmm ... what else? Yes, let me talk about a surprising experience. Even though I have been in the technology field for more than a decade, it generally do not come to my mind that I belong to that field. Same thing with teaching. Eventhough now I am into that area, I never remember that I am actually teaching... I never received any greetings from my students when I was in the engineering college at Tadepalligudem last year, on teachers day. But, this time, many of those old students sent me greetings on the morning of Teachers Day. How can I express what I felt at that time? I have received many awards and rewards as a technology person, but never I felt this much of sense of fulfilment. In fact some of the participants of my just concluded training program also came to me (in Chennai) with greetings and gifts as well. We had fun time together chatting.

All the way, life is going through its sweetest phase ... the impact is like even the problems are also contributing to making these moments more sweet and memorable.

In a moment, I will have to leave for Chennai for a two day program over there. From Wednessday, for the first time, I will be handling a program at a Bangalore MNC. Let me see how this week would unfold.