Archive for October, 2005
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 10 Oct 2005, 10:38 PM - Leave Comment
The company you work at and the company you keep both make a big difference.
Being in the silicon valley, I get to meet and talk to entrepreneurs
almost on a daily basis and get to hear about cool things that they are
working on. It’s amazing to see how these folks look at the same things
that everyone is looking at but will find an opportunity that no one
else has seen.
Every time there is a paradigm shift or a discontinuity, there are a
ton of opportunities. RSS was a paradigm shifting technology and that
lead to a ton of opportunities. Here are some examples:
* It was difficult to visit so many sites and created an opportunity for RSS readers (eg:
Newsgator,
Bloglines)
* As a publisher, it was difficult to find out how many people
subscribed to your feeds and that created an opportunity to manage
feeds (eg: Feedburner)
* Search engines were not indexing blogs in a good way, that created an opportunity for blog search engines (eg: Technorati)
* Bloggers were not able to monetize beyond AdSense as more people
subscribe to their feeds and not visit the site. That created a RSS
advertising opportunity (eg: Pheedo)
* For every one person who is using an RSS reader, there are 99 who may
not know what is RSS. This created an opportunity to send blog entries
via email (eg: Feedblitz)
Now for the latest innovation – you now have so many sources to search
and that created an opportunity for a meta search engine (eg: gada.be)
I was one of the fortunate few to hear this idea when Chris
was literally writing it on a piece of paper at a conference a few
weeks ago. I was fascinated by the simplicity of the idea and now that
the service is launched, I am not only fascinated, I am amazed at the
power of this service.
I can search for something by putting the search term as a sub-domain in the blog url. So typing something like http://rajesh.setty.gada.be
will actually report back results from a few search resources (for
‘rajesh setty’) all in one page + the search results can be output as
an RSS feed. Check it out. You will be glad you did.
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 09 Oct 2005, 11:17 PM - Leave Comment
Last friday I was at KRON 4 TV station attending Web 2.1 BrainJam event organized by Chris Heuer. I met a number of cool people
and technology visionaries in the event. It was a great experience as I
follow the blogs of many people that attended the event but met many of
them for the first time in person. It’s an experience that can’t be
easily explained – how many do you experience meeting someone for the
first time but still feel that you know them for a long long time?
I also had an opportunity to talk briefly about “Beyond Code”
Thanks to Enric for posting a video blog entry
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 09 Oct 2005, 9:05 AM - Leave Comment
We are smart people and we know that it is a statistical impossibility that we win
on everything that we put our hands on. However, when we lose on
something, we are dis-heartened and sadly, many times when we win on
something, we compare ourselves to others that we have win bigger and
stop celebrating our victories.
[ Please take a look at: Celebrate small victories ]
This little quote reminds us of the importatance of continuing to try
“It doesn’t matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again”
- Charles Kettering
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 08 Oct 2005, 3:27 PM - Leave Comment
Advance Praise for Beyond Code
“Beyond
Code is a little powerhouse of a book – an explosive mix of inspiration
and instruction, exercises and enthusiasm. Every software professional
will benefit from reading it and absorbing its wisdom”
- Daniel H. Pink, Author of “A Whole New Mind
“
Posted under Endorsements, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Oct 2005, 6:47 AM - 10 Comments
For years we have heard the story of “Tortoise and the Hare”
For those who missed, here is one version of it:
One day a tortoise and a hare had an argument. The hare was bragging about how fast he could run. The tortoise challenged the hare and long story short – they both decided to have a race and decide the winner.
The race began and of course, the hare ran fast and was ahead of the tortoise. Midway, the hare stopped and looked back and realized that the tortoise was very far and was walking slowly. He decided to rest for a while and took a short nap.
Meanwhile, the tortoise did not stop and walked and walked and went past the sleeping hare. Very soon he was near the finishing line. The hare woke up and realized that the tortoise had gone past him. He ran as fast as he could but alas, the tortoise had crossed the finish line.
See, slow and steady wins the race.
There is no challenge here. The conclusion was based on one single assumption in the story that the hare will sleep before it reaches the finish line. Really, what are the chances that the hare will sleep before he hits the finish line? 1 in 1000. So, based on a such a slim chance, you conclude that “slow and steady wins the race?”
Stories can mis-lead us and take us in the wrong direction if we are not careful. If you really want to conclude “slow and steady wins the race”, please go and find something else other than the above story to
based your conclusions on.
My $.02: This story
has run its course. When everyone around you is “fast and steady” and you are “slow”, this story or the conclusion won’t help. You need to change!
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 04 Oct 2005, 11:31 PM - 2 Comments
This is one of my favorite questions. A few months ago, the question
used to be “How do I start a blog?” That’s no longer the popular
question. Almost everyone knows how to start a blog. In fact, one of
the easiest things about the blog is starting one. With so many free
blogging services available, it should be a snap to setup one. Of course, if it’s easy for you to start a blog, it’s easy for several million people out there.
So, for obvious reasons, starting a blog is no longer a differentiator.
You got to do something more. So, what are those additional things that
you can do?
Over the last few months I have a learnt a thing or two about blogging
from several of my friends who are my role models in the blogging world.
Here’s my $.02 for those of you who are starting to blog (partial list)
1. Focus on providing high ROII (Return on Investment for an Interaction)
Every time a reader visits your blog,
remember that you are taking his or her precious time and the only way
you can get a reader to return to your blog is if you can ensure that
the reader gets the highest return on their investment of interaction
time with your blog.
2. Write something worth linking to
Unlinke newspapers, blogosphere is full
of conversations. Of course, you will link to something that you find
interesting. It’s the same with others – they will link to you only if
you write something that may be useful to their readers. There are no
favors here.. sometimes may be
3. Participate in other conversations (Thanks to Dave Taylor for the suggestion)
To make the most out of your blog, you need to participate in conversations outside of your blog too
4. Update your blog frequently
Frequency is subjective and all I can
say is work hard to maintain a reasonable frequency. It takes a lot of
commitment to write quality content at regular frequency.
5. Provide reasons for why you are the right person to say what you are saying
With the amount of information
available on the internet, you can write brilliantly about almost
anything.However what you write will gain more credibility if you are
qualified to say what you are saying. For example, if you are writing
about entrepreneurship, it helps if you are one. This means that
Last but not the least:
6. Blog is not your brand
There is a confusion that you can build
a brand through your blog. While in some remote cases it is a
possibility, in most cases, you have to work online and offline to
build a powerful brand and use your blog to extend it. “Who you are”
matters a lot. Think about some of your favorite bloggers and you will
see that they are all working on exciting things apart from writing
interesting blog entries. They speak at conferences, write books,
contribute to other magazines, participate in charitable causes etc.
In summary, starting a blog is the easiest thing to do. Maintaining one
is hard. Not because you won’t get enough content to write but because
while maintaining your blog, you need to invest in yourself to keep
growing to continue to enhance credibility for your blog.
Good luck!
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 04 Oct 2005, 9:37 PM - 1 Comment
Thank you for all your support so far. I am happy to let you know that Beyond Code is shipping now. You can buy it at
1. Beyond Code at Amazon.com
If you want to order multiple copies you can try
2. Beyond Code at 800-CEO-READ
Thanks again!
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 03 Oct 2005, 7:06 PM - 2 Comments
My friend Ravi has an interesting post called “Compete and Collaborate” on his blog Musings on Information Security, where he explains how two competitors such as Cisco and Juniper Networks can actually partner (at appropriate times) for mutual benefit.
I think in the new world everything changes. The line between
competitor and partner is blurred. If the opportunity is right and the
rules of engagement can be hashed out and both parties have high
integrity, nothing should prevent two competitors from partnering
especially if both are going to WIN big by collaborating.
Lots of things to learn..
Posted under Compelling Offers, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 01 Oct 2005, 3:30 PM - Leave Comment
Advance Praise for “Beyond Code”
“Rajesh understands what makes
the biggest difference in project and technology management:
People. This book will give any reader a tool kit to avoid “thing
thinking” and manage way beyond simple code. If you want to
retain top talent and bring out their best, this book is for you.
If you want to make a difference to your business and the people that
comprise it, this book is for you. Read it and grow.”
- Tim Sanders, Author of “Love is the killer app” and Leadership Coach at Yahoo!
Posted under Endorsements, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 01 Oct 2005, 10:04 AM - Leave Comment
During one of my talks in the recent past, one young software
professional came up to me and asked whether I would be willing to
introduce a well-known author to him. After speaking with him for a few
minutes I told him that unfortunately I could not make that
introduction as I don’t know what this young professional had to offer
to the author. The person understood the rationale and said he would
come back to me with something compelling. I’ll wait. I didn’t have a
choice here – the gentleman did not provide a strong reason for the
author to meet him.
I think before asking for help, a few things that you should consider:
a) Why should the person help you – what’s in it for them?
b) What does it cost
the person to help you – you may say it’s only a few hours of the
person’s time. Remember that more powerful the person is, more the
premium on his time. You may not have a lot of value for those few
hours but for this person it may be an opportunity cost.
c) Is the help you are asking in the person’s area of strength?
This is important and I think most people assume a lot of things. If
you think carefully and ask for help ONLY in other person’s area of
strengths, the chances are that you will get a quicker and better
response. Also, since this is an area of strength, the person has to
spend very little time to give what you asked.
In summary, whenever you are asking for help, make sure that you are making it easy for them to help you.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
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