Archive for July, 2006
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Jul 2006, 10:43 PM - Leave Comment
I had the privilage to participate as a mentor in the “Get In their Shoes” program organized by Patrick at IMNO (International Mentoring Network Organization). The winner of the contest gets a 30-minute mentoring session on the phone.
I had the opportunity to talk to a bright young man called Sunil Kanderi from Wisconsin on the phone for this mentoring session. Here is the transcript of the same at the IMNO website.
Link: IMNO Mentoring Session Transcript
(If you are in the software business, you might be interested in this)
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Jul 2006, 11:41 AM - Leave Comment
There are so many definitions to what is creativity. Sir Ken Robinson has a great one. The definition has two parts and both parts are important. It will be a gentle reminder to all of us creative folks to see if we are really creative 
“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value”
- Sir Ken Robinson
Oh..you should not miss Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on the topic of creativity. Here is the link:
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Jul 2006, 6:36 AM - Leave Comment
Let’s say you are working on a new project. You want to get some feedback from some of your smartest friends. You pick a number. Let’s say that number is ten and you call all of them at the start of the project and ask for their feedback. Chances are that more than one of them will give you the same feedback. The feedback can be something on the lines of:
a. what might work and what might not work
b. what to be careful about
c. their past experiences on a similar project
d. on executing the project well
or something else. The point is that if you talk to all of your smart friends at the start (or at any stage) of the project, you will hear the same thing from multiple people.
Here is a simple (alternate) approach to getting feedback:
1. Divide your smart friends into three or four groups
2. At the initial tage of the project, go to one group (new one every time) and get feedback
3. Incorporate the feedback, make necessary changes and update the group that provided feedback
4. At every crucial stage of the project, work with a new group and get their feedback and repeat the update cycle
5. Update other groups on the progress of the project but your focus should be to get critical feedback from a new group. If the earlier groups provide critical feedback that is valuable, it is a bonus.
This method has worked great for me and several of my entrepreneur friends. You need a new set of eyes (smart ones) to look at a project at every crucial stage. Progressive feedback requires discipline and planning but works like magic.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Jul 2006, 6:00 AM - Leave Comment
The fine folks at InBubbleWrap are featuring my book “Beyond Code” today. 20 people will win a free copy of the book. The catch – you have to sign up and answer two questions.
Here is the link – InBubbleWrap: Go Distinguish Yourself
In case, you are not one of the 20 to win, you can still win by taking up the promotional offer and get 4 free bonuses
Here is the link – Buy Beyond Code
Thank you.
Posted under Endorsements, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 06 Jul 2006, 10:38 PM - Leave Comment
Imagine this:
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that you are no longer a human being and you are now a television. Depending upon your self-esteem and attitude, you are either a simple 15-inch TV or a 42-inch big screen plasma TV. But television you are. You sit in a corner and wait for someone to “operate” you. A child walks by and switches you on and suddenly you are playing Cartoon Network. After sometime your wife walks by and asks your child to stop watching TV and asks the child to go to bed. Of course, you are really not switched off but you change your channel. For the next two hours you play drama. Next day, you have some friends at home and they are all watching world-cup football. You are going through some intense moments and there is a big relief when the game is over. After the game, though, you are switched off and they all enjoy the party.
When I get people to do this exercise and ask them how they felt, people usually respond with variety of answers. Here are some keywords in their responses:
* funny
* scary
* ridiculous
* stupid
* boring
* interesting
and many more.
Interestingly enough, people forget that sometimes they exactly behave like a television. They play different channels based on who is pressing the buttons on the remote. They feel that they don’t have control on what channels to play. They think whoever has the remote decides what the next show is.
Think about it for your life: Who’s got your remote?
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 06 Jul 2006, 3:06 PM - Leave Comment
This is typically a “last mile” problem that can easily be solved. This is also a problem mostly related to awareness and the power of beliefs.
Let me explain. Let’s say painting is your passion. You love to paint. You have done some amazing work in the past and you continue to produce great work of art even today. However, you have “discovered” that the best time for you to paint is early mornings. When the sun rises, you have to setup your stuff in the balcony and paint. Question for you: “What would be the magnitude of positive impact on your life if you dropped the condition that your best work is produced in early mornings ONLY?”
I have seen many bright people practicing their craft with self-imposed rules and conditions. Here are a few:
a) an author will write only on that old computer.
b) an author will produce his best work only at his or her farmhouse.
c) a painter has to wear a particular hat to produce her best work
d) a strategist gets his best ideas during the morning jog
Sometimes I think these self-imposed conditions provide an insurance policy to us. Imagine if you didn’t have those conditions holding you back. There won’t be any more excuses left for you to NOT succeed wildly.
Think about your case for a second. What conditions have you imposed on yourself to practice your craft? Are these conditions real or did you just make them up one day? Once you start believing those rules that you made up, they start becoming “real” for you. After that they become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Try this for a few days. Whatever be your core craft (that you love and are passionate about) make it “condition-free” – meaning you should be able to practice that craft without any conditions, wherever you are and whenever you want. Even if you succeed partially, you would be better off than where you are now!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 06 Jul 2006, 11:30 AM - Leave Comment
For those of you who are long-time readers of my blog, thank you. For those of you who are new, welcome!
Those of you who are interested in buying my book, my company Foresight Plus, LLC is partnering with 800-CEO-READ to bring this July promotion. If you buy the book through 800-CEO-READ, you will get a few additional materials that have never been published before.
You can read all about the promotion at Buy Beyond Code.
The promotion runs throughout the month of July.
Posted under Compelling Offers, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 05 Jul 2006, 8:25 PM - 2 Comments
About fifteen years ago, I was attending a speed reading workshop back in Bangalore, India. As an introduction to the course, the instructor asked us to pick up a book and turn it around and read a page. It was hard to read the book upside-down. It took us a few minutes to read one full page. Then the instructor asked us to take the same book, turn to another page and read it properly. This time, we were able to read it fast. VERY fast. In fact, faster than our normal reading speed. Of course, that was not the real trick to speed reading. The instructor wanted to prove to us a point. And he DID.
Here are a few (hypothetical) scenarios:
1. Imagine your are in-charge of a new product launch. You have been given a budget of $1000 and a few interns from business school to help out. How would you make this happen? I am sure you have no choice but to think VERY differently.
2. You bootstrapped your company and spent most of the money on building the product. The VCs tell you that they can invest in your company if you show a few initial customer wins. You don’t have money to go and get those customers. You feel like you are in a rock and hard place. What would you do? Again, you would think VERY differently.
3. You are close to winning a deal with a client if you agree to execute the project at 50% of the bid amount. You badly want the deal and you start thinking about how to make this work. Again, you would think VERY differently to come up with a solution.
You can call this “out of the box” thinking (as it involves looking at things VERY differently) or you can call this “thinking inside the box” (as it involves designing strategies and executing with minimal resources) or something else. The point is that once you practice how to work with minimal resources, you stretch your mind. Remember the famous saying by Oliver Wendell Holmes – “Once the mind has been stretched by a new idea, it will never again return to its original size.”
Working with minimal resources is like taking your mind to the gym. If you succeed here, you are way more prepared to do your job when there are adequate resources. A side-benefit of practicing your craft with minimal resources is that you will learn the discipline to not waste or abuse any resource that you have.
Something to think about:
Which one of your projects are you putting off because of lack of resources? What would you do differently if your life depended on executing that project within those limitations?
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 04 Jul 2006, 4:41 PM - Leave Comment
Last week when I picked up Sumukh (my seven year old son) from school, he had two forms in his hand. He said “Dad, can we please go to Barnes and Noble?” I love books so I was anyway ready to go there but I was curious to know why Sumukh wanted to go there on that particular day. That’s when I learned about this Summer Reading Program from Barnes and Noble. It is an interesting program. The concept is simple.
* Any kid can participate in the program
* Participating kid has to read about eight books (any books)
* Participating kid has to fill out a journal entry where the name of the book, author and the part that the kid liked most needs to be filled in.
* Parent/Guardian of the participating kid has to sign stating that the kid has read those books
* Participating kid has to take this journal to the nearest Barnes and Noble store to get a brand new book (from a selection of about 25 books)
Long story short. We both went to a nearby Barnes and Noble store. He got his free books. I couldn’t resist buying a book. While coming back from there Sumukh said he wants to finish reading a few more books next week so that he can get to do this exercise again. I couldn’t resist silently appreciating the smartness of Barnes and Noble. Very simply, the company was investing in its future customers.
We are no different. It is not difficult to see the relevance of this in our own lives. Imagine your life five or ten years from now. Would you be doing the same thing you are doing then? Probably not. You would be in a different position doing very different things – meaning you would have different clients. Think about it for a second. Are you investing any amount of your time (in a planned manner) in growing them?
What actions can you take today to find, connect and nurture your future clients? Do you see that you are really investing in your future competitive advantage by investing in your future clients?
Good luck!
Note: For other articles in the same series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic.
Link: Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 04 Jul 2006, 3:08 PM - 2 Comments
I have written earlier about the importance of timing. Location is equally important as timing.
A few weeks ago I was in Boston speaking at TiECon East. I stayed at the beautiful Hyatt hotel overlooking the Charles River. It was late in the evening and I thought of fixing myself a cup of coffee. Next to the table, there were two bottles of water and each bottle there was priced at $4.95. It was surprising but not shocking. There were no shops closeby to the hotel and I am sure a few people won’t mind paying $4.95 for a bottle of water. Hey, the room costs more than $200 a night and that bottle of water costs less than 2.5% of the room rate 
Now, we all know how much does a dozen bottles of water cost at a place like Costco. Probably cheaper than $4.95. So, what changed. One thing is location. Take the same bottle of water to the middle of the desert and I am sure they can charge $49.95 and nobody will blink at the price. Premium, in this case is mostly related to the location.
The above example can easily be applied to our personal and professional lives as well. You bring a certain set of skills and strengths to the marketplace. If there is an oversupply of those skills and strengths at the location where you are, you are in a commodity marketplace. It is hard to ask for a premium in a commodity marketplace. That is not a good battle to fight. Alternately, think about what is the right location where your skills and strengths are more welcome.
Agreed. You have so many things going on where you are and it’s hard to move. It’s not that easy. It will disrupt everything that you have built. If that’s really the case, and you CAN’T move, you have to seriously think what are those skills and strengths that are commanding a premium at your CURRENT location. Is your current BRAND relevant in the current LOCATION?
If what you bring to the marketplace is not relevant, you are not bringing much. You can blame it on the marketplace, economy, outsourcing, government or you can do something about it.
Note: For other articles in the same series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic.
Link: Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
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