Archive for August, 2006
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 30 Aug 2006, 5:53 AM - 1 Comment
Flash News: I just heard from the publisher that there are going to be two Chief Guests for this event
1. Ajay Jadeja – cricketer who has played close to 200 one-day cricket matches.
2. Sita Raina – noted director
I am thrilled!
You are all cordially invited for the “Beyond Code” release event tomorrow.
Here is the invitation.
Best,
Raj
Posted under Announcement, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 27 Aug 2006, 5:06 PM - 3 Comments
Lost and Found
Once, I had lost my mind. Somehow, I found it back. Actually, I didn’t know I had lost it – because without my mind I could not be aware of not having one. Whenever I write a paragraph like this one, I fear that I may still have not found it.
–
Note:
1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.
2. You can download a photographic manifesto of Mini Sagas at ChangeThis. Here is the link – Mini Sagas: Bite-sized Wisdom for Life and Business (PDF, 2.9MB).
3. For a complete list of Mini Sagas, please visit the Squidoo lens “Mini Sagas“
Posted under Main Page, Mini Saga.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 27 Aug 2006, 4:32 PM - 3 Comments
Atanu Dey has a short essay (still a work in progress, he says) on problems – simply fascinating. Here is the link:
Atanu Dey: Short essay on Problems
Enjoy!
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 27 Aug 2006, 3:00 AM - 1 Comment
Last couple of days I spent time with some of the brightest folks I know in Bangalore. One of them was none other than Jnan Dash. Jnan provided a ton of insights on technology trends but throughout the two days sprinkled his talks with humor. Here is one gem on entitlement.
Everyday morning a man would park his car at a particular location. The man was generous and paid $10 to an attendant to take care of his car. A few years later, the man got married but continued to park his car everyday at the same location. However, something changed. He paid only $5 to the attendant.
A few years later, the man had a couple of kids. The man continued to park his car at the same location everyday. However, he paid only $1 to the attendant.
One day the attendant stopped the man and asked him about the change in behavior. He wanted to know why he only paid him a dollar – a mere 10% of what he used to pay him a few years earlier. The man, of course, had a good explanation for his change in behavior. He said that things were very different when he was a bachelor. Now, he had a lot more expenses and he was careful how he spent his money.
The attendant shook his head and quipped “Sir, this is not fair. You are using my income to take care of your family.”
Posted under Main Page, Smile Please.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 25 Aug 2006, 5:57 AM - 17 Comments
I am currently in Bangalore meeting with software folks of all levels of experience – from fresh graduates to people who have returned from abroad with years of experience.
As I observe and consume all the data that I am gathering, on one side I am happy to see that the place is bubbling with enthusiasm but on the other side I am disappointed about what this is doing to young software engineers. Let me focus on the second part. Here is some background.
What gets offshored in a big way is commodity stuff. So there are lots of people working on commodity stuff. Case in point: I talked to an young software engineer working on a project for a large chain store in the United States. I talked to her about her project and while she was very passionate about the project – she was maintaining the email campaign management system that the chain store was using. That was on the positive side. On the negative side, she had no clue about the “customer.” She thought that the chain store had 4 stores but in reality, the chain store has more than 1000 stores across the United States. She had a great understanding of the email campaign management system but she had no idea of the end-to-end application and its business impact. She had been working on this for more than a year. That was sad. Of course, when we talked about her compensation, there was a pleasant(?) surprise. I thougt she was way over-compensated for the kind of job that she was doing. After a quick coaching session, she got what the “real” problem was.
The over-compensation was a slow poison. The company was happy to retain her and over-compensating was the quickest way to do that. In this case, the compensation was such that it would be very hard for her to take a job where she will have the opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies but with a lower compensation. She will get a feeling that she is “sacrificing” something (money) to go after her dreams. In reality, she is not “sacrificing” anything – she is infact escaping from the hand-cuffs imposed by the over-compensation.
How about you? Is your current compensation holding you back from making the right decisions?
Something to think about over this weekend.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 22 Aug 2006, 2:47 PM - 5 Comments
For those of you living at New Delhi or close to New Delhi, I want to invite you to attend the “Beyond Code” release event on Aug 31, 2006 at 5pm. Here are the details:
Date: Aug 31, 2006
Time: 5pm
Location: Oxford Bookstore, Statesman House, Connaught Place, 148 Barakhamba Road, New Delhi – 11001
Topic of my talk: “Distinguish yourself” plus Q & A, of course!
Here is the link to the invitation. Please RSVP (details are in the invitation)
Link: Beyond Code release event invitation
Look forward to meeting you there!
Posted under Announcement, Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 22 Aug 2006, 12:55 PM - 9 Comments
I have written about this before and probably will write more before the end of the year. Here is some background:
Being in Silicon Valley, it it not hard for me to meet with different types of people at entrepreneurship related conferences. Most of them fall under the four categories below:
a) successful entrepreneurs
b) entrepreneurs who think they are successful
c) people who want to be entrepreneurs
d) people who think they want to be entrepreneurs
The last category has everything. They are the most interesting, amusing and frustrating people that I encounter.They are smart people and probably are very successful in their current jobs. They have interesting ideas (sometimes) to build busiensses on but unfortunately, they don’t have the heart of an entrepreneur. Here are the kinds of comments they open their introduction with:
a) “Raj, you must have read Google’s recent announcement on <fill in the blank>. I had that idea three years ago”
b) “In some sense Yahoo! stole my idea”
c) “I had the very same idea last year. I even told this to some of my friends. Microsoft beat me to it”
Honestly, I don’t know how to respond to those kinds of comments. When I learn a bit more about them, it is clear to me that they were not going to do anything with those ideas anyways. In fact, my big worry is that they currently have some ideas cooking in their minds – won’t do a thing with them and three years later repeat the same story with someone else.
Here are my $.02 on this topic
1. You may not be the only person to get that idea
Something at work or outside triggered some thoughts that led to an “Aha moment” and that led to a business idea. Your assessment was that you “observed” something that others didn’t. It does not take a lot of time to realize that this is very unlikely that you are the ONLY person to have got that idea in the world. Unless it is some sort of a breakthrough idea, you actually be confident that many more people in the world have got the VERY same “million dollar idea” in their minds.
2. Majority of people who get an idea won’t do a thing with it
While the #1 item above is bit discouraging, the good part is that most people who get ideas won’t do a thing about it. There are many reasons for this. Here are some:
a) They don’t want to do anything with ideas. They just like to stretch their creativity
b) Most often, executing on an idea requires a “lot more work” than conceiving that idea
c) People move on to the next idea. That is more fun!
3. What you do with the idea is equally important as the idea itself
Unless you are cooking up ideas for academic purposes, an idea ALONE may not be worth much. You got to execute on it. Here are four combinations that I can think ofa) Bad Idea + Bad Execution (Clueless category)b) Bad Idea + Good Execution (Over-confident category)c) Good Idea + Bad Execution (Novice Category)d) Good Idea + Good Execution (Winner category)
Of course, you want to be in the “Winner” quadrant but you may not always start there. More than anything, you should clearly know what category you are currently in.
4. Who you do it with is equally important as what you do with the idea.
People who pitch ideas are extremely interested in “pitching” ideas, of course.I am usually more interested in “who” is pitching more than the idea itself. In fact, in the first meeting, we may not even get to the idea.I want to know who is on the team, their backgrounds, how they came together, their attitudes, why they want to build this company together and even to the extent of getting to know what they want to get out of their life and how this company will play a part in it.
More often, I don’t need to get to that second meeting. It is very clear that some teams can’t execute on this or any other idea.
5. You need a healthy appetite for risk
Moving from being an employee to an entrepreneur requires you to take an enormous amount of risk. You may never have seen that kind of risk as an employee.
Statistics show that the chances of you succeeding as an entrepreneur are very slim. In fact, if you are very logical and want to be an entrepreneur, I suggest that you don’t look at the statistics at all. They don’t look pretty.
I see too many people trying to play safe. It’s almost like they are saying “I will start working full-time in my new business once I am VERY clear that I can take home a reasonable amount of money every month.” In reality, the scenario may be that you have to work full-time in your business in order to increase your chances of taking home a resonable amount of money every month. There is no guarantee there and that is where your appetite for risk comes in.
In closing, I want to wish all those wannabe entrerpeneurs the very best!
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 21 Aug 2006, 8:44 AM - 2 Comments
Kids at any age are fun. Their thinking is not contaminated. Here are a couple of recent incidents that I remember:
#1 Sumukh (my seven year old son) picked up the phone one day. It was his aunt on the phone and I think she asked him what he was doing. Sumukh’s reply was “Talking.” and the next question must have been “With whom?” and quick came Sumukh’s reply “With you.”
#2 My friend Terry (founder of PSVillage) talked about a similar incident. Terry called her sister one day and her five-year old niece picked up the phone. After announcing who she was, her niece asked “Who is speaking?” Terry wanted to have some fun and said “Who do you think this is?” and after a brief silence, her niece responded “Wow. That’s a very long name”
Enjoy your week ahead!
Posted under Main Page, Smile Please.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 21 Aug 2006, 6:00 AM - Leave Comment
A few days ago Kavitha, Sumukh and I visited the Livermore temple.
While returning back, I saw a sign that said “Scenic Seven Hills” along with a nice view of some hills. I had not observed this sign before. The first thing that came to my mind was that this must be a new place that I had not seen. I wanted to see what it was. I convinced Kavitha that we should check it out. We followed the signs and after a few minutes we hit a dead end – or NOT. It lead us to a condo complex that was called “Scenic Seven Hills”
Why did they name it that way? I don’t know. However, there are many things in life where “what you see may not be what you get.” One of the reasons is just that people who prepare information to be presented for you to “see” assume things. Why? Because the information is obvious to them. They don’t think whether the way information is presnted is obvious to the consumer.
My point: Next time you prepare some information to be presented, think about it from the viewpoint of the consumer of this information. It may not be as obvious as you think.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 20 Aug 2006, 9:37 PM - Leave Comment
I am honored to be included in the list of cool blogs by Mike Sansome at Converstations.
Here is the complete list:
Link – Converstations: Blue Ribbon Finale
Thank you Mike for including this blog. I discovered a set of blogs that I am sure will be on my list of blogs to read.
Posted under Announcement, Main Page.
Recent Comments