What did I learn today? July 10, 2009

Hi Folks,

Every day, I share most interesting links, quotes, insights that I come across. Here is today’s scoop -

1) Good article about e-commerce website usability by Greg Nudelman – The Mystery of Filtering by Sorting. Main takeaways for me are as follows -

• Most users do not have clear understanding of the difference between sorting and filtering. They use sort function as if it’s a filter.
• we should lay out search controls in such a way that users can read their settings as an English sentence. e.g. Search [--text box--] in [--categories drop down--] sort by [--sort option drop down--]
• On e-commerce website search results, most users don’t go beyond first screen full, i.e. they don’t even scroll down. Many of them don’t go beyond first page. Almost nobody goes to third page. The more no. of search results fit in first page and first screen full, comfortably, the better.

2) A very good article about how to come up with new entrepreneurial ideas. What a Pain.In.The.Ass. Chris Oleary has a simple but powerful thought.

3) The dark side of entrepreneurship. Accounting is very important in any business. Always be extra-cautious, do your homework, be lean, save a stash of money which can be used in hard times. Better to be prepared than being caught off-guard. Finally, entrepreneurship is not just about BIG REWARDS, but also about RISK which has to precede rewards.

What did you learn today? Can you please share with me?

—
Cheers,

Tejas Joshi

What did I learn today? July 2, 2009

Hi Folks,

Every day, I share most interesting links, quotes, insights that I come across. Here is today’s scoop -

1) Here is another good blog post by Derek Sivers I discovered today. Are you future-focused or present-focused? The marshmallow experiment. I’m becoming kind of fan of Derek Sivers. He is music composer turned entrepreneur, former owner of CD Baby, sold it for 22 million $ in 2008. Many of his blog posts are thought provoking and inspirational for wannabe entrepreneurs. Derek mentions a book time paradox. I need to check it out soon.

What did you learn today? Can you please share with me?

—
Cheers,

Tejas Joshi

What did I learn today? June 30, 2009

Hi Folks,

Every day, I share most interesting links, quotes, insights that I come across. Here is today’s scoop -

1) Great discussion about how to lead a business meeting. Comment snippet I liked best is -

She analyzes the likely interests of the multiple stakeholder groups before each meeting and has a quiet word with the most influential decision-makers, "asking their advice" about the contentious issues that are likely to arise, so that no-one’s position ever comes as a surprise in the actual meeting.

2) Great advice on How to be rich & how not to be rich – by Felix Dennis, Britain’s business tycoon. Check out the article, it’s a very good read. In the article, Dennis says:

After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than me fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this. ()

3) And now, this one is for my brother and all the 20 something singles – Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis.

What did you learn today? Can you please share with me?

—
Cheers,
Tejas Joshi

What did I learn today? – June 29, 2009

Hi Folks,

I will share most interesting links,  quotes, insights every day. In return you share yours’ with me. Deal? Well, that’s the plan. Let’s see.

1) There is a nice discussion going on over at metafilter.com – How to go from 30K to 100K+ income?. I like this comment snippet -

Paul Fussel in his book Class says that the poor don’t care what people think of them & the rich don’t care what people think of them, but the so-called middle class spends inordinate amounts of energy trying to appear to be upper class, and in desperate fear that you can see right through them to their working class roots.

2) Another amazingly inspirational post by Steve Blank.  Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA. Opportunities are always there, you need to keep your eyes open and grab the opportunity when it presents itself in front of you.

What did you learn today? Can you please share with me?

–
Cheers,
Tejas Joshi

Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA

Am I with a right partner?

Some forwarded email goodness. Thanks to the person who originally wrote it. Thanks to the person who forwarded it to me.

During a seminar, a woman asked," How do I know if I am with the right person?" the author then noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so he said, "It depends. Is that your partner?" In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?" Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it’s weighing on your mind replied the author. Here’s the answer.

Every relationship has a cycle…In the beginning; you fall in love with your partner. You anticipate their calls, want their touch, and like their idiosyncrasies. Falling in love wasn’t hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience. You didn’t have to DO anything. That’s why it’s called "falling" in love. People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet.." Picture the expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something happened TO YOU. Falling in love is a passive and spontaneous experience. But after a few months or years of being together, the euphoria of love fades. It’s a natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome (when it happens), and your spouse’s idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute, drive you nuts. The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship; you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage. At this point, you and/or your partner might start asking, "Am I with the right person?" And as you reflect on the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else. This is when relationships breakdown.

The key to succeeding in a relationship is not finding the right person; it’s learning to love the person you found. People blame their partners for their unhappiness and look outside for fulfillment. Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is the most common. But sometimes people turn to work, a hobby, a friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances. But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your relationship. It lies within it. I’m not saying that you couldn’t fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you’d feel better. But you’d be in the same situation a few years later. Because (listen carefully to this): The key to succeeding in a relationship is not finding the right person; it’s learning to love the person you found.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. You have to work on it day in and day out. It takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it demands WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make it work. Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific things you can do (with or without your partner). Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. If you know and apply these laws, the results are predictable. Love is therefore a "decision". Not just a feeling.

Remember this always:

God determines who walks into your life.

Code Fight competition

I read this insightful, funny blog post by Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror – How to Motivate Programmers. Jeff says, and it’s so true -

Don’t race sheep, don’t herd race horses.

Best way to motivate best programmers is to ignite a little friendly competition. It immediately got me thinking.

It would be so cool to have a programming competition in my dream organization. I would like to call it Code Fight competition. Let me dream up an invitation to enter this competition.

– Code Fight competition 2011 –

Are you bored by day to day job and want to develop a cool, exciting application all on your own? Well, here is your chance to unleash the beast and win 1000$. We are hosting a company wide Code Fight competition. We invite all developers to enter this competition.

Competition deadline is ABC date. You have 2 months (till ABC date) to conceptualize, design and develop your application. On ABC date, all the entries will be made available for company wide evaluation. Winner will be decided by public voting/scoring. Entry with maximum score will be the Winner. Anyone can download, evaluate and give scores for all the projects for following evaluation criteria -

1. Concept - how simple, useful, innovative the application concept is?
2. Usability - Is the user interface simple to use, intuitive, uncluttered?
3. Code design - how good do you think the architecture is? Is code modular enough? OOP concepts followed? Coding best practices used?
4. Code clarity – One year down the line, if you are asked to maintain this project, how comfortable do you think would you be? Does the code look clean, properly commented? how easy is the code to understand?

Each criteria can be given score against 10, so each evaluator is giving score out of 40.

We will host a Code Fight competition event on deadline ABC date. Each competitor will get a chance to do 5 minute presentation about their project. Goal of the presentation is to excite the crowd about your application and entice them to download and evaluate your project.

Competition rules -

1. To enter the competition, you are required to submit your entry within 8 days by XYZ date. All entries after XYZ date will be rejected.
2. You can enter individually or as a team. In case of team, prize will be equally distributed among team members.
3. You can choose any idea of your choice and implement it. Generally you want to be useful (to someone), because that is one of the factors you will be evaluated against. If it is useful for use inside our company, all the more better.
4. You can devote 20% of your weekly time to the project, for the duration of this competition. Of course, you are all the welcome to use your personal time.
5. Required base database should be included with the downloadable code base. Try to organize project files, resources in a way that makes it easy for anyone to quickly setup application on their machine. Provide installation instructions text file. Remember, the easier you make it to install your app code base, the more you increase your chances to get good marks.
6. etc. etc.

– End –

Occasionally, late/last minute entries can also be permitted on case by case basis, but this point will not be publicly declared. I’m still not sure if cash prize is a good idea, or some cool geeky device such as i-phone or few days of PTO, etc.

I know there are a lot of rough edges around this idea. It needs lot of improvements on competition rules, evaluation criteria, possible prizes, etc.

What do you think about this idea? Do you have any comments, suggestions? You are free to use this idea (I know it’s not all original any way) in your organization/company. But please let me know how did the event go, will you?

—
Cheers,
Tejas Joshi

Posted via email from Change Is The Rule

To enter the competition, you are required to submit your entry within 8 days by xyz date. Please mention your project title, brief description and technologies you plan to use. All entries after XYZ date will be rejected. You can enter individually or as a team. In case of team, you will be

How to make a good conversation!

I learned a thing today about making a good conversation. I going to share it with you.

I have a very good friend, with whom I talk in english, like most of we do. Let’s call him ‘guy A’. The problem with this guy is, he is not very good at speaking english. He finds himself struggling for words quite often. He is from one of the third world countries and his accent is different than most popular accents in America.

I have another good friend, whom I highly regard as a good conversationalist. Let’s call him ‘guy B’. He is so good at making a conversation, he can talk for couple of hours without you getting bored and without you uttering a word. He has varied interests from business to politics, from sports to technology. He has lot of ideas and opinion about everything he comes across. Talk to him on any subject, he may tell you a thing or two worth pondering.

The funny part is, guy A and guy B are the same person. How can a person be not good at speaking a language and still be very good conversationalist, you ask? I say why not? You don’t have to be good at language to make a good conversation. What you need is lot of good ideas and boldness to put them forth. You need to have confidence in yourself and what you are saying. If you have ideas don’t worry about the language, go ahead and try to express your ideas.

Related to this topic, I stumbled upon a very good blog post today – Seven Tips for Making Good Conversation with a Stranger by Gretchen Rubin of Happyness Project. Check it out, you may like one of the tips.

—
Cheers,
Tejas Joshi

Posted via email from Change Is The Rule

Great ideas shaping India – TED talk by Infosys CEO Nandan Nilkeni

In his TED talk, Nandan Nilekani, visionary CEO of outsourcing pioneer Infosys, explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress. I quickly jotted down the main ideas, those are as follows -

Ideas which have arrived - ideas which are already here and being implemented successfully.

• population as human capital and not as a burden
• Entrepreneurs as role models and social acceptance of entrepreneurship
• English language as an asset
• Acceptance of technology as a boon. ‘man & machine’ instead of ‘man vs. machine’.
• Confidence to deal with and thrive in globalization
• True democracy

Ideas in progress – ideas which have gained wide spread acceptance but yet to be implemented successfully.

• Primary education
• Infrastructure
• Growth of cities
• India as a single market

Ideas in conflict – ideas in conflict. solutions are still being brainstormed in favor and in opposition.

• conflicting ideologies
• Labor reforms
• Higher education

Ideas in anticipation – ideas which should be considered and brainstormed about.

• E-governence
• Health issues
• Pensions and entitlements
• Environment

For more details, please listen to this engaging TED talk – Nandan Nilekani’s ideas for India’s future.

—
Thanks,
Tejas Joshi

One Sock | Advice I would give to myself

One Sock | Advice I would give to myself

• Have Goals
• Focus
• Be confident
• Network
• Volunteer

Posted using ShareThis

If you get to thirty and you still think persuasion is about making a logical argument, you have already lost

Peter Zarris – CEO of OPIC “If you get to thirty and you still think persuasion is about making a logical argument, you have already lost”

I first came across Peter when one of my businesses built a website for Peter that would allow them to select the best psychometric tool for any situation.  Downstream we became friendly and he also did some testing for my staff.  On one discussion with Peter over coffee about why a business partner couldn’t see sense in a particular course of action, Peter stated “If you get to thirty and you still think persuasion is about making a logical argument, you have already lost”.  I came to realise that what was logical to me, was based on my values and experiences and others would intepret the same  set of facts according to their own values and experiences.  It was a real slap in the face to me because up to that moment, logic had been king.  Peter also told me that if you really want to change, understand its going to hurt.  And if it doesn’t hurt, your not doing right.  Peter’s insights fundamentally changed the way I deal with people.

Posted via email from Change Is The Rule