Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Its interesting to observe the way we Indians think! We apply logic and build complex software. But forget to apply basic common sense in many aspects. Following are some simple examples from Bangalore: Nobody talks about laying proper roads to Bangalore International airport before opening it. The airport construction is complete now. But it takes more time to reach the airport by road than the flying time to Chennai. Out of the blue another set of activists, workers, media talk about 'What to do with HAL airport?'. The majority of the road traffic (during the office hours) is due to knowledge workers traveling to ITPL and electronic city. Yet the proposed metro rail route is not covering both the places. Always IT employees complain about not getting autos to reach their homes. Auto drivers complain about not getting 'savari' all the times. More demand, more supply! But still there is a problem. How come one third of cubbon road can be declared as 'auto lane...

I understood quite a lot of things by observing people who attend landmark forum. Primarily the educated, upper-middle class, urban population attend this and they don't have any clue of what life is all about. The materialistic life style has taken toll totally, which makes them live a miserable life with wrong perceptions, notions and beliefs. Suddenly they realize that the situation it out of control and start thinking about 'one-stop' solution for all their problems. They look for one 'thread' on which they can hang on for rest of their life and forget their worries. The start identifying the thread by attending course like: Landmark forum, Art of living, Ramdev yoga and then getting associated with them. Other examples include: Kanchi ashram,ISKCON, Saibaba ashram, Aurobindo ahsram, Amritanandamayi etc. In a way all these organizations and courses teach almost the same universal values like: humility, responsibility, community service, treating everybody equal,...

It’s been 6 months since I attended Landmark Forum in Bangalore. For people who don't know what this is all about please check out this link . I have mixed opinions about the course. Let me share my first set of thoughts about this course. Let me explain the course structure first. It’s basically a three day plus one evening course primarily focused on personal transformation. Each day starts about 9 AM in the morning (sharp) and goes on till 11 PM in the night, with grueling sessions. Each day has only very few break in between, that too at odd timings (11 AM, 3 PM and 7 PM). A well trained ‘forum leader' will be leading the course for about 400 participants. He has a pre-defined courseware and speaks non-stop for all the three days. These leaders are extremely smart people and ruthless in expressing their viewpoints. The landmark education forum has internal methods of identifying, coaching and grooming these leaders. Coming to the course contents, it’s completely a westerniz...

I was reading Andy's blog and found this interesting piece about Ergonomic laptop stand (Using 3-ring binder as laptop stand).It was very easy to try at my workplace and worked wonders. I am feeling extremely comfortable using my laptop and typing speed has increased to a greater extent. Check out the couple photographs below and its really worth trying! Tail piece: I have read Andy's 'Word-of-mouth-marketing' (WOMMA) book recently and become a fan of it. Will write the book review very soon.

So many things has happened in the last three months, when I was not blogging! Last month, Ram Shriram (One of the early investors in Google) was in India and I had a chance to watch his interview in CNBC. It is probably one of the best TV interviews (in the similar lines of Dalai Lama , Azim Premji ) I have ever seen. I was completely hooked up with each and every word Ram was speaking in rhythmic, soothing voice with clear thoughts. The text version of the interview is available here in the CNBC website. Here is my favorite portion (especially the highlighted one) from the interview. Very simple statements but very realistic. Q: How important is it for you to have an Aha moment every time you put your money into something? A: It is important to realize not every investment will be a Google. Q: It would be great if it turned out to be that way. A: Yes. So, every ten years or so, you will see a Google size company emerge. But in general, it takes committed entrepreneurs, great teams t...

Last weekend I attended the summer edition of Barcamp Bangalore . This is my first Barcamp and I found it very interesting! To start with, its amazing to see the energy level of attendees. They were all highly pumped up and it was showing up with almost everyone I have met. Compared with a hierarchial corporate setup, it was organized as a completely an informal, flat and free-flowing setup. Every session was packed with very interesting questions, debates, critisicms and smart answers in eight different tracks . I was mainly interested in the 'startups and demo' track and spend almost the whole day (saturday) there. I was able to see pretty good web 2.0 applications (Example: http://www.lifeblob.com) demonstrated for roping in the technology enthusiasts. There was an interesting session (according to me) hosted by Prof.Suresh from NSRCEL at IIM-B on the topic 'Startup pains'. He was asking the campers about the list of problems faced by aspiring Entrepreneurs and what...

I stopped writing blogs ever since the year 2008 has started. It was mainly due to some priority tasks (both personal and professional side) occupied my time. Now its high time for me to get back to the habit of blogging! This break has given me more energy to venture deeper into the blogosphere. Stay tuned.

Last week I went to sub-registrar office in Chennai. I got a big shock when I saw the notice board. The e-mail ID of the sub-registrar was mentioned as: igregn.tn.nic.in (See the picture below) This exactly shows how clueless our government systems are when it comes to deploying technology. Long live India ’s e-governance!

In 2002, I visited USA for the first time. During transit I spent some time in Singapore and Hong-Kong. I was totally shocked to see the great infrastructure, well defined rules, robust systems and responsible individuals. After I got back to India , I was frustrated and disgusted to see the Indian system. We Indians just don’t follow any rules; Even if we follow, it is short lived. Take example of Indian roads: We can’t lay good roads; Even if we lay, we will not maintain it; within months, the newly built road will have numerous potholes; Added to that we spit, throw garbage, urinate on it and make sure it is spoilt to the maximum. This phenomenon is very unique in the subcontinent. Take the well developed western world, Middle Eastern and south East Asian countries – they all well built and properly maintained. After some more experiences, I learned that it all finally boils down to an individual’s behavior. Even though Indians are as smart as anyone else in the world, w...

Before reading this post, please check out this link for my opinions about diversity. Here is the latest buzzword among Indian MNCs -- ‘Workplace diversity’. The amount of non-sense going behind this topic is pretty interesting. It also shows how, we Indians bow our heads and accept things without asking any questions. Whatever told by the parent organization in US/UK is taken as a ‘mantra’ and we end up implementing it without knowing head or tail of it. Especially the senior management of India based MNCs has no clue of the rationale behind many of such initiatives. The latest ‘workplace diversity’ campaign is a classic example. According to ‘Wikipedia’ the diversity in workplace or business is defined as: The "business case for diversity", theorizes that in a global marketplace , a company that employs a diverse workforce (both men and women, people of many generations, people from ethnically and racially diverse backgrounds etc.) is better able to understa...

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 ...