iPad 2 - Almost

I had decided to buy a tablet this trip to the US, and hence made my way to the nearest Best Buy from office. Yes, after having been one of the earliest adoptors of netbooks 3.5 years ago, I was finally ready for a tablet. My market options were the IPad 2, PlayBook, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7, Acer Iconia and Moto Xoom.
Being a fan of open ecosystems, the IPad 2 was basically ruled out already when I walked into the store. I was really looking forward to getting a really good Android Honeycomb 10" tablet!

But guess what?
1. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" - Ruled out!
Reason: 7" form factor wasn't too compelling. I like bigger screens and I have fat fingers. Also, the response was quite sluggish, it is a previous generation product, yada yada

2. Blackberry PlayBook - Tempting, but still not compelling enough!
Reason: UI was brilliant, superb use of the bezel as part of the touch experience. Multi-tasking was top-notch. Screen quality was top-notch. But then once again 7". Also too new in the market, and I wasn't sure about the apps support, and hadn't read any reviews on it.

3. Moto Xoom - Ruled out!
Reason: Heard some bad reviews on it. 10" was good, but finger prints showed very badly. Also, was heavy, and very thick. Seemed like a Gen 1 product for sure. Played some games on it. They were brilliant. Very high quality. Really liked it otherwise. But the whole interface was very cluttered and unintuitive. Was unlike any Google product I've seen before. Maybe the store had a really messed up version. Anyway, something about it put me off.

4. Acer Iconia - Quite good, but still not compelling enough
Reason: Screen was much better than the Xoom. Even had a USB port on it. But I still couldn't commit to buying one because after looking at the IPad 2, it seemed like a monster. Even thicker than the Xoom. Also unsure of the Acer brand after my last Acer netbook conked out in less than a year!

5. IPad 2 - The best of the lot! Almost bought it! Sanity prevailed in the end!
Reason: Definitely the best product in the market. Even tempted an anti-apple guy like me. The screen was crystal clear. Touch experience, much better than the others. And far thinner and lighter than any of the other options in the market! I was just about to pick it up and walk out of the store when I decided to go for a walk and come back. Finally sanity prevailed. No USB. No AVI support. Definitely deal breakers for me. My use case was for the Tablet to be a replacement for my laptop when I'm not on work. In that case, I'm not really "creating" anything, but would definitely like to
a) Download the photos from my DSLR when my CF card gets full.. Typically during vacations or Ultimate Frisbee tourneys
b) Plug in my external drive and play movies from it when on travel. Obviously I'm not going to store all my movies on the tablet.
c) AVI support? Xvid support? "oh.. you can convert the movie to mp4 through iTunes." said the Best Buy support guy.
NOT happening! It takes forever. Also a pain to keep converting whatever I need, when the most popular format is clearly AVI.

Mr. Jobs. You got me. Almost. But yeah, definitely kudos on the product. I wish you would reconsider your stupid stance on a closed ecosystem and NOT supporting any of the standards (Mass Storage Class, AVI, etc.)
Mr. Competitors. You guys really have some catching up to do.

So, the wait continues. I hear that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1" is even thinner and slicker than the iPad 2. That solves half my problems. Hope they support USB, and I'll buy it and retire my netbooks! I'm not going to buy an iPad 2 just for the sake of owning one. If Email is all I needed to check on that, I'd use my BB. Far better typing experience! :-P

The sign of a true leader

Earlier this week, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop wrote a memo to his entire organization. This memo has now come to be known as the "Burning Platform" memo (see transcribed below). This is probably the most straight forward a CEO can ever get. I can only imagine the turmoil that must've been going through the company ranks and all it's employees prior to this memo. I'm sure the employees were disillusioned about the leadership and why the "leaders" were not able to see ground reality. As a consumer, I've always wondered what the heck the Nokia guys were smoking up! Stale products. Totally unexciting. If I'd been an employee, I'm sure I'd have been wondering why I'm working on whatever I was working 'cause it's totally irrelevant to the market.

There are four parts to the situation Nokia is in (a) Recognizing the problem (b) Accepting it openly to send out strong signals that the problem is known (c) identifying corrective actions (d) executing on the corrective actions. Even if one of those steps is missed out, it's impossible for a leader to re-gain confidence of his workers, peers and investors. If one of those parts were missed out, it always leaves people wondering "What the heck are these guys are up to? They are clueless!"

Stephen Elop took a strong step in the right direction by his memo. He addressed (a) and (b). Let's see what happens at Mobile World Congress this week. He should talk about (c). Hopefully a partnership with Windows Phone 7?
Stephen Elop, we bow to you. It's the hardest thing for any leader to have said openly (and proactively), especially when there are thousands of employees depending on you. Once you have said what you said, it all seems so simple. But, the simplest things are often the hardest to say. Yours is a text-book move, for every aspiring leader to learn from.

RIM.. I hope you're watching and learning? Your Blackberrys are going sour!

Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.

Let's not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally - taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, "the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation." They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we're not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we've lost market share, we've lost mind share and we've lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor's informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody's took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It's also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.

Nokia, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

Is this closure? The technology equivalent?

I've been having this feeling for a while now. Maybe the last 4-5 months. But, this is going to be the first time I will admit it aloud.

Yahoogroups & Googlegroups are outdated. Blogs, websites are almost there too. Email is fast getting there!

People just don't check emails & groups as often any more!

What do they do instead? They check their SMS, Facebook messages, etc much more often than email! Hotmail and yahoo.. I can probably find 10 regular users (combined) on my mailing list. Gmail.. maybe a lot more.. but even then I'm willing to bet that the people below 20 who use it regularly are VERY few. 8-9 months ago, I was sort of taken aback to find out that a lot of teenagers / less than 21 year olds creating hotmail / yahoo ids. When I asked them why they aren't using Gmail, their response was.. "It doesn't matter which one.. I just need that to get to my Facebook. I hardly check it anyway! If people want something important, they just message me on FB chat, or SMS me if they can't find me online!"

I think it is the new reality. The future is about text messaging, instant messaging, Facebook messaging, and maybe facebook private messaging.

The best observations of the changing times I can probably give are all from my Ultimate Frisbee experience. The first few clubs in India (Chennai Ultimate, Bangalore Ultimate, etc.) use yahoo groups to communicate. The clubs that formed a little later use googlegroups. And the clubs that formed most recently (Pune Ultimate, etc.) use Facebook groups! Thats probably an accurate description of the changing trends & times. All this in a span of 4-5 years!

The older teams (Chakraa, LiveWires, L2F, etc.) use yahoogroups and email to communicate. The newer teams (Stall 7, FlyWild, etc) use purely Facebook groups, instant messages and SMS to communicate.

Chennai Ultimate Frisbee's communications are also moving slowly with the times. 3.5 years ago, we used to be completely Yahoo Groups based. But these days, we use both Yahoo Groups, and the Facebook fan page to communicate news / events. I suspect that even the regulars are increasingly getting their updates from Facebook rather than from our Yahoo Groups. You don't even have to guess about the rest of the people.

I'm waiting to test out the Facebook Messages email service that Facebook will be rolling out. If we find that's stable enough, and offers most of the features that we used to be able to do on yahoogroups and traditional email, Chennai Ultimate will take a bold step towards completely migrating to a Facebook based communication. I believe that going forward, this will help us reach out more effectively to new fans who're looking to be in touch with us, new talent who're looking to start playing, and also provide news about us more effectively to our existing fan base.

I guess in relationship terms.. we call this "closure". We stop hanging on to the past, and accept the inevitable. Now, I'm excited! :-). The future looks bright!

p.s. Don't get me wrong. Email will probably always exist. So will blogs and websites. And maybe even Yahoo Groups and Google Groups. But, I'm talking about the primary mode of communication. Make no mistake. It will be Facebook & SMS.

The geek in me - Part 2 :-P

Someone recently suggested that I try a Google search on my own name. I never thought much about it, until I tried it this morning.
Lo and behold, I found that one of my research papers back from NC State days actually was presented and published at a conference. I was pleasantly surprised when one of the links took me to the page of my research guide Dr. Ram from NC State. This was 2 years of hard work as a Research Assistant during my Masters. It was during the dot com bust days, and I had to leave NC in a hurry when I found a job in Colorado. I got caught up with settling down there, and focusing on my new job, and completely lost track of all that I did at NC State. I actually dug up this paper from somewhere in my archives this morning and read it! :-). I don't know if they ever productized the Lignin sensor!

“Mechatronic Design and Control of a Waste Paper Sorting System for Efficient Recycling”, M. K. Ramasubramanian, Richard Venditti, Manukaran Karunakaran, Tappi Fall Technical Conference, Chicago, IL, Oct 27-29, 2003

http://legacy.mae.ncsu.edu/homepages/ram/pub/conference.html

Woot! Low Power Design picks up my article..

The geek in me still lives! :-)

Woke up to some good news this morning. An article I wrote (on how to improve Tablet's (iPad clones) performance while downloading movies, songs, etc. onto it)has been published on Low Power Design electronics magazine. Front page! :-)

Anyone who went to Low Power Design magazine's page
http://www.low-powerdesign.com/index.html
would see my article on the first page! Damn kicked about it. Low Power Design magazine has a 45,000 people subscription to it's newsletter!

Of-course, it will disappear in a week or two from the front page. The permanent link for the article is on
http://www.low-powerdesign.com/article_karan_061710.html

TEDx Chennai

I'm glad that Abhinav pushed me into attending TED. Initially, I had no inclination to attend it because I just couldn't stand the idea of sitting and listening to people talk from morning 8.00am to evening 6.00pm! I just don't have that kind of patience, nor did I think that my body would allow me to do so. After all, I'm the guy who dozed off during a 1:1 with my research professor! (and oh believe me, that's not the only time I've fallen asleep while spending 1:1 time with someone else). But, finally, I did sign up for it. Got my passes.

At the end of the day, I was glad I attended it. I didn't sleep for 1 second. I didn't even feel drowsy. I did feel bored during a couple of people's talks, but that was about it. You can find the list of speakers here. If I were to order the speakers/performers according to my favourites, the list would look like the following
1) N. Vittal
2) R. Madhavan
3) Romulus Whitaker
4) Anil Srinivasan & Sikkil Gurucharan
5) Dr. Santhosh Babu
6) Satyabrata Dam
7) Sharada Ramanathan
8) Kavita Baliga (amazing Opera piece demonstration by her.. but the talk wasn't as good)
9) Khurshet Batliwala (only 'cause I've already attended the Art of Living course and so there wasn't much value add for me)
10) Jeeva Raghunathan
11) Krupalatha Martin Doss
12) GRK Reddy

My biggest problem with the bottom few speakers was that they did not understand the concept of TED. TED is a forum where some inspirational people who have achieved something, come and mention a few things about what they've done, and more importantly share how others can achieve what seems to be impossible. There have to be tangible take-aways from every take away. It is NOT a forum for advertising their companies or their achievements... but rather a place to highlight / show other people how to achieve them. If a talk made me think about somethings I haven't already, then it
Ever since I got back from the talk, there have been flashes in my head.. certain lines that some of the speakers said. That should tell you how good an event was. Some of the lines which made me think are listed below. I don't remember the exact lines, but these are my take-aways..

1) N. Vittal - It's always a challenge for an IAS officer because he is given the authority to change things without having any idea of what he's dealing with. So, what Vittal did was send out questionaires to every member of the organization asking a few particulars about the individuals, their function, and the challenges they faced, and what could be done to make their jobs easier. Vittal's take was that you can't always be the one coming up with all the ideas. If you're a good leader, you can enable others' ideas to come forward and blossom and importantly, you will credit them for it!

2) N. Vittal - How do we use the Judo technique (make the opponent's strength useless by your offense) to disrupt the money power of politicans in an election. This incredible money power and spends during elections is the start of the vicious cycle of corruption in India. Eg. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose tried to take the British on their own strength.. but was vanquished. Gandhiji used other methods like Ahimsa, Non-cooperation, etc to really get the Britishers out of India.. no amount of army power, money power, or authority that the British had could do anything against it

3) N. Vittal - Great leaders find a way to simplify complex problems into a simple concept/solution, exaggerate it effectively to make the masses understand / embrace the solution, and mobilize the masses to the cause! Perfect example was the Salt Sathyagraha. The complex problem of the Indian's suffering under the British, the British Oppressive rule, and the great loss of India's heritage was all summarized as: a common man cannot even have a pinch of salt without paying taxes. He made the Dandhi march to exaggerate the concept and make a point. And sure enough, the masses all around India rallied behind him. Non-cooperation!

4) Khurshed Batliwala - Problem with organizations and NGOs that address Alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.. is that you don't address the root cause. Not many people in the world know how to handle the ups and downs of life. They are mentally / physically weak and hence adopt other means to cope-up.. "It's almost like I have to either become an alcoholic / drug-addict before I can get some help and attention!". The Art of Living is one of the many ways that teaches the common man how to strengthen himself/herself through breathing techniques and other concepts.
I thought he nailed the problem statement atleast..

5) R. Madhavan - India is an 80% agricultural country, and if we have to import staple food.. its a shame. The problem is not the capability, but the yield. India probably has the worst yields per acre farmed. It's however easy to fix it. It's harder to go from 90% efficiency to 95%. However, in our case, it's so much easier to go up from 20% yield. Any educated changes we make, dramatically increases our yield!

6) R. Madhavan - Young entrepreneurs should look at agriculture (through engineering) as an opportunity. There's a lot of money to be made in this space!

7) R. Madhavan - A human being's brain capability is severely stunted if there is malnourishment in the first 3 years of his life in this world.

8) Satyabrata Dam - Whenever your life seems to complicated, head to the mountains.. They will give you clarity.
I tend to agree with this one. I've felt the same! Boy do I miss Boulder / Colorado!

9) Romulus Whitaker - I can't get over the name Madras. Why did they have to go change it to Chennai? What does Chennai mean?? Red-dog?? :-P

10) N. Vittal - Diabetes and corruption are similar in a large sense. Both can be controlled but not eliminated.. (thanks Janani for reminding me about this gem)

That's all I remember now. Will add more later as I remember..

You should be able to watch the videos which will be made free in 2 weeks on TED website (www.ted.com)

#TEDxChennai

Storm 2 - Piezo touch screen

Combining mechanical feeling with the flexibility of touch screens. RIM is now the innovator with the new feel touch screen for the Storm 2. Ha! Take that Apple!

Say no to shackle-ware!

Ripped out heart? It's still alive!

My alma mater North Carolina State University has done some amazing work. The Mechanical Department (yes.. the same place I used to be a research assistant) has recreated a tiny bit of God's magic, by keeping a heart beating outside the body! Pretty awesome stuff. Take a look at the video below..



More info at
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/nc-state-gurus-keep-hearts-beating-outside-of-the-body/

OMG! The new Lexus...

Check out the video below!! Mind blowing technology! Watch the car parallel park by itself!

My job

For the technology lovers who read my blog.. here's an article on the product which I do marketing for in my company. This device is a sort of USB accelerator which allows you to download music into your phones much faster.

Today, if you take 1 song from your PC and put it on your phone through a USB cable, it probably takes you 2-3 minutes. This time is MUCH longer if you do it on BlueTooth or over the network when you download from your Telecom Operator like Vodaphone or Airtel.

Now imagine you downloading 2 or 3 albums full. You're pretty much waiting for 40-50 minutes for this to finish. So, it almost makes you think what the heck mobile phone makers are doing by putting in huge amounts of storage on the phone. It's not like they've given you any practical way to fill it up.

This article talks about that exactly and how the Cypress West Bridge solution is the answer to this problem. :-)
This article features a comparison of the iPhone, LG Dare, Samsung Instinct, HTC G1, and Blackberry Bold

http://eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212002500&pgno=1

A walk in the clouds!

Aviation industry has advanced so much!! Especially this Lufthansa airplane that I took from Chennai to Frankfurt during my last Europe Trip! Take a look at the following pictures (click on them to see the text better).




So yeah.. if you ever decide to go for a walk on the Airplane wings just to stretch your tired limbs.. please make sure you don't go beyond the marked areas! Could be hazardous :-P.

(Location: Somewhere over the Arabian Sea on my flight to Frankfurt)

Gapminder!

Babynav sent me this link. It's an old video. One of my profs showed me this during a class at ISB. Very interesting!

The Japanese Pot Saga

Japan is a treat for gizmo freaks. They have everything automated.. right from payments for tickets for the subway, all the way to food dispensers. But, one unique gizmo which I haven't seen anywhere else in the world.. is in the Japanese rest rooms! They have automated ass-cleaners! Of course, this doesn't put everyone in their comfort zone. As one of my colleagues remarked.. "Japan has everything.. automated dispensers.. high-tech toilets.. but no god-damn toilet-paper!"

Why don't we have such innovative products in India? :-P. At least in the star hotels! I'm sure no one will complain.

The pleasure of a high-tech pot, I tell you.. is very addicting! Especially true if you're a "lazy bum" like I am (pun intended)! I was reminded of my parents picking on me for trying to get work done without moving my ass :-P. For once, I can say that this did happen! (Okay.. I'll stop grossing my readers out at this point).

Voila.. for your viewing pleasure.. one such high-tech toilet!

Check it out! Heated seat rings for added comfort! Definitely useful during the cold Japanese winters!
[Edit] Forgot to mention the "Deodorizer" button! :-)


Spray control! Water temperature control!


And finally the incredible ass cleaner!


Oh btw.. the last picture wasn't as easy to shoot as one would imagine. The damn sprayer wouldn't come out till someone sat on the toilet seat. There was some sort of weight sensing mechanism on the toilet seat ring. Talk about hi-tech :-P.
I tried summoning the sprayer after placing my soap box on the toilet seat ring.. no luck. Replaced the soap box with my entire toilet kit. Still didn't work! Then, I finally ran out of options.. and decided to stand on the tub which was to the right of the pot.. put one foot on the toilet seat ring, add pressure by putting my weight on it.. lean over.. press the button to summon the sprayer (which btw.. retreats into the frame until required.. so as not obstruct other important stuff..), quickly stand up again, and shoot a picture of it. Unfortunately for me, the summon button was way over to the other side.. across the pot.. It was quite a task to whip out my camera quick enough to shoot this picture.

Finally, after 45 min of struggling to take this picture (and after getting sprayed on my face some 3-4 times.. DAMN that thing has a powerful spray! Went almost 4-5 feet high!), I emerged victorious from the rest room! Smiling.. drenched all over.. but camera unharmed/untouched (it's an expensive Nikon D70). I had this picture that I shall keep for posterity! I only managed to get the sprayer on its way back in.. but that's good enough. Couldn't dodge the damn spray.. AND whip out the camera and shoot a clear picture fast enough!

p.s. What? :-P. Stop over-reacting. The water from the spray was clean water. So, no big deal getting sprayed on the face :-P

iPhone, Pearl2, Diamond and Dare

Saw this video on youtube comparing some of the newest touch phones. Great that they paid some attention to some of the features that most people neglect to look at, but will come back to pain you when you're actually using the phone!



p.s. The Pearl 2 has the USB accelerator that I market! Check out the transfer speeds! :-)

Presentation went well..

I landed at the hotel where the conference was being held with about 45 min to spare, a laptop bag in which I had luckily stashed away a shirt and a razor. I checked in, ran up, quickly shaved, and changed to the one shirt I had. Ran down, just in time to watch catch the prelude to my presentation take off. After this, I was put on stage along with my colleague. This year I've been entrusted with revenue targets and so, as part of that foray, I have to train sales and field engineers. This presentation was the first of the many to follow, in trying to get buy-in from the field engineers. There were about 250 of them at the conference. Into the 2nd slide of my presentation, I was caught off-guard by a couple of questions, and then proved to have made a mistake. I accepted the mistake, and went on to put up more credible information/numbers over the next couple of slides. This finally got their attention, and then valuable feedback/constructive criticism started flowing in. Executing on the current revenue goal for me this year on a product which is relatively new to the target market segment, will be like going through an entire Marketing course for me. Starting from Marketing 101 to Marketing 999 :-). Learning the ropes of dealing with the product lines, application engineers, sales, customers and competition will be a great experience.

Apart from this stuff.. I've been noticing other stuff that I'd forgotten about the US!
a) How large a one-person serving can be at restaurants
b) What is "switch-on" position in any other country, is "switch-off" in the US for all switches.
c) Water fountains.. haven't found this anywhere else I've visited so far.

I also realize that I do miss the US in a lot of ways. It has become part of me in some ways. The amazing roads, the superb cars, the traffic handling, Bagels, pancakes, etc.

Surface Computing Technology

My god!!!

One of the perks of my jobs is that I get to see the latest technologies from around the world. Every exciting new technology is like a mini orgasm..

This particular technology however, I havne't seen yet.. but, here's a video of whats to come in the near future..

Microsoft's Computer Desk

Podworks is here..

The 2nd Annual Podcasting workshop (unconference style) is here. The Knowledge Foundation of Chennai is organizing this event on June 9th and 10th at the Tidel Park.
I've been a semi-serious blogger for about 2 years now, but I've never tried my hand at podcasting. Hopefully I'll be attending Podworks (unless I get pulled back into my work ) and arm myself with enough knowledge to take a shot at it.

Check out this Podworks video.

For more info on Podworks, check out this wiki..

13-year old CEO?

You know how we always feel that younger is sometimes "smarter". I know that I sound like a 50 year old now.. but it is true. I have been observing this for a few years now, even while playing computer games against my nephews while visiting them at the Bay Area. I remember when they were about 8-9 year olds, I used to kick their butts even in new games that I hadn't played before, and they've been playing it for a while. When they were 9-10 years old, it wasn't that easy to beat them, even in games that that were new to both parties. In fact, I had to wake up early morning and practice a bit, so that I'd appear to nonchalantly beat them whenever I played them. Even then, they'd beat me a few times. One might argue that they're from a different generation, but I'd say that they're not too different from me. I've been playing computer/video games from when I was a kid, and I've been decent if not pretty good at them. So, that argument doesn't really hold water in this case.

So, why not a 13-year old entrepreneur?

Here's an article I read somewhere.. and I first couldn't believe it. I don't think I could talk the way he (Anshul Samar) does, out of a premiere B-school. Check out the link below.. and make sure you watch the video where the kid talks about his company's product.

Link : Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON

From the Web 2.0 class

What is Web 2.0? A short intro through some videos.. links given by the professor of the Web 2.0 class. A really good idea from the 2nd video for sure!

Waa.. I want a Wii

There are sometimes I regret not being in the US. This is one such time.

I found a couple of awesome demo videos of the Nintendo Wii on YouTube. It's amazing!

Being an Innovator/Early Adopter.. I feel inadept/handicapped right now! :-(

Check out these awesome videos.