Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Recently, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam has launched fortnightly e-newspaper 'Billion beats'. This is a welcome initiative as the internet medium is reaching every corner of India. Got a chance to read the first edition yesterday and it is very good. Check out this link for the latest edition.

Recently came across couple of interesting experiences, which prompted me to write this post. Scene 1: Bangalore Airport I was waiting in a long queue for checking in and came across Cafe coffee day joint. This is supposedly an exclusive one inside the airport, where the coffee is priced higher than their outside joints. There was a dust-bin kept outside the shop and I was totally shocked to see the state (see the picture below). This is the behavior of 'so-called' -- educated, elite, urban, upper-middle class people who are engineers, doctors, businessmen by profession. They can afford to pay 50 INR for a cup of coffee but can't think of disposing the used cup properly; They are representatives of new India and popularly known as 'Global Indians'; They visit multiple countries but just don't have basic civic sense when it comes to their own country; They make the westerners believe that the world is flat but still throw used coffee cups in a...

Author: Andrew S grove Price: 600 INR Andrew is one of the famous CEOs, who lead Intel into the path of microprocessors. In this book he shares his experiences, which can be applied to individuals’ career as well as organizations. Andy introduces a term called 'Strategic Inflection Points' (SIP), which has got equal probability to make or break any business. The businesses who adapt these SIPs (paranoids) will go successful, failing which will make them to shut the shop. He explains about how the businesses are affected by many factors which he calls as '10X' forces which primarily drive the organization beyond the SIP. These 10X force could be in the form of new technology, innovation, economic reforms, business model etc. Throughout the book, Andy explains his SIP and 10X concepts with the PC business as an example. In 1970s the PC business was a 'vertical' one which was heavily dominated by companies like Digital Electronic Corporation (DEC). By ...

For the past month or so the Indian rupee is getting stronger against the American dollar, which has come down to 39 INR compared to 45 INR. This is already bleeding Indian services companies and their Q3 numbers speaks for that. When the rupee was getting weaker these service companies used to make 4-5% of their margins just by keeping their money in dollars and converting them back during the results announcement. Nowadays Indian service companies are mulling multiple options to resolve this problem -- six day working week, reduced hike for employees, productivity improvement, moving to lower cost geographies (like China and eastern europe) etc. With STPI tax sops are getting withdrawn by 2009 , Indian IT companies are having challenging times ahead. Let me take the example of product R & D happening in Indian companies as an example. Of course value creation can be done at multiple levels apart from R & D as well. Majority of MNCs which are having their engineering centers i...

Author: Sudha Narayanamurthy This book contains collection of short stories, which the author wrote in many newspapers and magazines. The author has traveled extensively to the rural parts of India where she met different type of people in India . She explains how people in rural India are having very high value system and leading a self-contained life. This book contains almost 50 small stories. Written in very simple English, this book explains the author’s experiences. Reading this book also gave me the background information of Infosys able to contribute to the society. Basically the author experienced everything, which made Infosys as a good corporate citizen. However at some places, the author mixed too much of sentimental stuff which I didn't like it. Also at some places it became boring as it had similar kind of stories. I would strongly suggest to read this book if anyone is interested in doing charity in India .

Author : Jack Welch Price: 750 INR This is autobiography of Jack Welch one of the very well known CEOs of the world. Initially the author talks about how he became the CEO of General Electric (GE) and talks some thing about his personal things as well. Things like 'Fix,sell or close' policy, which he applied to each and every divisions of GE, 'Churning bottom 15% people' has became alltime favorite of the business world. One simple lesson, which at least I learned from this book, is neither the organization nor the technology, will give lifetime employment for anybody in any hi-tech industry. Only working in a focused way for the customer will give that. I got impressed with this book so much that I gave the same name to my blog :)

Author: Arindham Chaudhuri Price: 200 INR This is one of the best selling books in India. This book consists of two major sections. The first section is more of a ‘Self development’ stuff where the author talks about the ASK paradigm (Attitude, Skill and Knowledge) in order to raise any individual. The second sections talks about the theory ‘I’ management. The ‘I’ stand for ‘India Centric’ management. Particularly I liked the second section where the author mentions that the management policies in any country should be based on the social architecture. He compared the western and Japanese management and gives a proposal for India,which is quotes lots of examples from Mahabharata.

Here is some of my favorite magazines! These mags are targeted to a specific audience, providing vital information. I started liking these type of stuff as they are catering to my interests. They also give altogether a 'positive' outlook of India . 1. Dare ( http://www.dare.co.in ): This is published by cyber- media completely focused on Entrepreneurship. They started the print edition from Oct '07 and the website is yet to be populated. Got a chance to read their Nov '07 and found it very interesting. It covered various aspects of Entrepreneurship -- new business ideas, VC/private funding, value creation and guest columns by successful Entrepreneurs. I also learned that their advisory committee consists of stalwarts like C.K.Prahlad, N.R.Narayana Murthy, Kanwal Reiki etc. Welcome effort from cybermedia! 2. Smart techie ( http://www.thesmarttechie.com ): This is a technical career magazine launched from Bangalore , which is a sister concern of Silicon India . I foun...

Author: Napolean Hill Price: 150 INR Its been long time since I stopped reading motivational or self-help books. I used to read them during my school days to 'pep-up' myself during examinations.Recently one of my mentors requested me to read this book 'Think and grow rich' by Napoleon Hill and found it different from typical motivational books. The Author Napoleon came up with this book based on his 25 years of experience in studying success philosophy, inspired by Dale Carnegie. This book consists of thirteen principles for becoming 'rich'. The author describes 'rich' not only in terms of accumulating material wealth but also in-tangible wealth -- in terms of success, accomplishment, love, peace, courage, purpose, happiness and contribution. To be very honest, I found the initial chapters as boring and it was covering typical motivational topics -- imagination, auto-suggestion, having a purpose in life, daily to-do list etc. The later chapters got much ...

Its been two years I have been practicing Yoga. Typically I spend about 45 minutes which includes about 20 asanas followed by some pranayama breathing techniques. In this post I am sharing some of my personal experiences. Its completely 'Experiential' The first point I learned about Yoga is -- its completely experiential. No matter how many books, articles, blogs anyone read, it just can't even come closer to the real experience one gets while performing Yoga. Its hard for anyone to believe this as we are more used the traditional way of learning (reading/writing/sharing). For example, if somebody some information about a book, I will at least get 20% of what he is trying to say. The 20% can be "quantified" because the knowledge a book provides itself finite. In case of yoga, the paradigm is totally different as the performer is connecting to infinite knowledge within himself. I know I am sounding abstract and confused -- thats what I call it 'experiential...

Want to get inspired? Watch the video of CMU professor Randy Pausch's last lecture below.