Will this be "yet another year"?

Every year is passing by and the churn is the same. Personally, this year was fulfilling both professional and personal front. During the last part of the year, I was discussing an idea with my friend Rajkumar about starting a website to share knowledge. Finally, we, together with yet another friend Badhrinath, started a website OpenGyan targeting college students.

Assume that there is a wonderful person this world. Everyday he credits few thousand bucks (86400 bucks) a day but he takes the balance when he credits 86400 bucks the next day. In other words, he just refills to make to sum to 86400 bucks. What will you do? Won't you make sure that you fully utilize the entire money and make it zero bucks. In fact, all of us, irrespective whether it is holidays, weekends, festival and illness are receiving 86400 bucks but most of us do not utilize it fully. If you have not figured it yet, the answer is "number of seconds in a day". We often waste our time in unnecessary things.

So the first thing, I would like to do is "Not to waste time" and "Having sense of URGENCY". In Hindu mythology there is king who does his funeral everyday. When you have that, everything will fall in its place and the world will unfold new opportunities.

Being a human being, I would like to do many things such as reading/understanding few Unix/Linux books cover to cover, do some serious blogging on technology, make some meaning in my life (and others' life), just shed 30 kilos of my fat, read at least 2 autobiographies, 10 new books and so on. Unlike the other new year, I eagerly look forward for 2009 to see myself transformed.

Cloud Computing - Redefining Internet (Part 1)

Cloud, often used synonymously for network is getting a traction. Cloud computing is a buzz word today and the technology is quite progressing in terms of deployment and communities are getting together to build technology and also suitable business model around cloud computing. Few days back, I happen to visit a youtube video quite accidentally and started to dig about cloud computing. In the next series of posts, I am planning to log my understanding about cloud computing from different perspectives - technology, bottlenecks, examples, related technologies, enterprise cloud, infrastructure and business model. Though my knowledge on cloud computing is very limited and experience is no more than just few days. However, I would like to post my understanding both from a layman's and software engineer perspective. If you want to explore further, kindly go through links and materials given in references section.
Cloud refers to network. It is a convention to represent network as cloud. Cloud Computing is a technology which enables the delivery of computing resources over Internet. Before discussing further on Cloud computing, let us quickly see few examples.

Example 1: Google Docs
How does Google Docs work? I am honest to say, "I do not know". Google provides software over Internet to its customers and the users of the software are not required to bother about how it works, where the files are stored, who manages it, what format it is stored. Also, you don't need install a piece of software in your laptop. It works across world and also in Moon. You can read your documents whereever you have internet. Isn't it?

Example 2: Web Hosting
Let us assume that you are hosting a website. In order to host a website, you need web server, storage (hard disk and databases), IP address, Domain name. You go to a web hosting provider and buy a package that fits your purse. The web hosting provider just gives a web user interface to manage your account such as host files/services. For you and your users it is still a website. However, your hosting provider may choose to run the servers/software on totally different physical systems but yet he is able to give you the flexibility of running in a single system. You are happy with your provider and so is he.

Example 3: Online bookstore
Assume that you are starting up a company like Amazon and you want an infrastructure to run your business. And you also know that building your own infrastructure is going to cost you more. You feel that you want to customize your business based on demographics which requires quite a churn in the infrastructure. You need to spend big bucks for IT infrastructure.

In the case of first example, you can see a lot of flexibility to the users in providing software as service. The users prefer software being provided as service. The first example need to necessarily be "Cloud Computing". It is just software that is being given to you over network. If you look at the example 2, you can call it "Cloud Computing" if you have all hardware/software being provided by Web hosting provider. In the third example, you want an infrastruture as service or computing as service. When you go for "Cloud Computing", your computing happens on Internet and the benefit for you is "Peace of Mind". If your core strengths are online publishing or running a bookstore, you can just do it. You don't need to have a big IT force. The "Cloud Computing" folks will take care of building networks, equipping your network with devices, install servers and software with accepted service level agreements.

So, in short, "Cloud Computing" is delivering computing over Internet/network without needing to know about anything about resources.

Law of creativity evolution

I have been in an illusion that all geniuses in the world such as Einstein, Edison, Leonardo da Vince, Michelangelo and Darwin are only creative thinkers. Their hard work in producing the masterpiece is huge and their masterpiece is so massive and elegant that the quality of invention is sufficient to over weigh the hard word. Recently, I got an opportunity to start knowing about creativity reading a book of Michael Michalko where he talks about the how ideas can be generated, what are steps and takes through them progressively.

One of the thought that impressed me and I quite agree because of my similar thought in my subconscious was "Law of Darwinian Evolution applies to creativity". The nature ensures that it creates millions of species and combining many genes and it leave those species there. It is up to the species to survive against the time. The nature provides level playing ground and the concept of "Survival of the Fittest" is quite a powerful idea and the truth. The nature never deviates from the truth even by a negligible margin.

In similar way, the creative thinkers were able to play the role of nature by just creating so innumerable ideas. And finally, let the ideas to float and pick the right ones. To be precise, the right ideas manifest to their eyes. This is how most of the inventions are made.

Based on the above statements, I would like draw some inferences that will be useful to me and keep me focused. Creative Thinking is not feasible without hard work. Hard work is the basis and common attributes of all creative thinkers. If someone is able to generate creative idea, it just happens once as a mere coincidence. If you want to be consistent in producing creative idea, get the basic right which is work hard. This is evident from the fact that there were 3500 note books scribbled by Edison during his lifetime. So, work hard.

Creativity - Yet another journey

A couple of months back, I bought a book "Cracking Creativity" and forgot about the book. Recently, when I was searching for some other book, I found this book and thought I should give it a read. It happens consistently that I never complete a book (except Freedom by OSHO) and I do not have any sort of complex of not reading the books completely.

I read first few paragraphs and found that I should read the book. My intention is not become creative but to know who creative people like Einstein, Edison, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and so many others saw the problem differently. There was absolute comparison between creativity and human evolution. The author conveys that the many speicies exist today due to "trial and error" approach of the nature. The nature creates many species and only very few survive many years. This applies very much to creativity. One generates different perspective and many solutions solving the problem. Then the "trial and rule" comes into play. The nature or system picks up one solution over a period of time and that becomes widely accepted solution (probably a best solution). So this ability to see a problem in different dimensions will by itself bring a variety of solutions to the table.

I strongly recommend this book to someone who wants to see the world differently and think differently. By the way, I just read few pages of book. Wait for sometime for chapterwise review.

One more sweet killer whale - HCI

Until the recent past, I have been thinking that user interfaces are just an important part and face of software. I saw certain web applications in the web, the so called killer applications, which were one of the very few applications that stand out. The concept of usability is not new. However, looking at the current technological position such as Web 2.0, penetration of mobile and intensity of mobile penetration into the lives of people and the entire Internet becoming a platform for building killer network applications will certainly make yet another area to be hot. A lot of research groups will be formed (and already lot of people are involved) and many companies were built around the area which is "Interface Interaction".

Over the last 10-15 years, the Internet have become part of everyone's life. Internet has come to a state of non-denial and irresistible. But most of the web applications that are built in a very old way. Even today, one can find applications with sucking user interfaces and in many applications the user interfaces have become junkyard. Twenty years, it was fine to be like a junkyard. Today, the people have access to many killer applications in the web and it is reasonable for them to expect user interfaces on par with those killer apps.

Secondly, many companies that focused on user interface and product development with much emphasis on look/feel and performance are called as "most innovative company". Even in this tough economic slowdown/recession, many companies themselves as innovative. Let us not dig deeper whether they are truly innovative. But everyone wants to call themselves innovation. User interface is an area which is constantly undergoing disruptive technologies changes.

There is very few area that undergoes tremendous changes - Interaction design, Human computer interaction. A lot meaningful research are being conducted, communities are formed and conferences are held. It may take a year or two to see a high traction being witnessing a lot of innovations. But this area has a very big candidate for many disruptive innovations. Keep a watch and if you have 30 minutes a week, spend on HCI/Interaction design and this should make you the next CTO (lol).

Get to action buddy

Many people say that they have potential and they can do anything in this world. While it may be true that they have potential and it may also be true that they can do anything in this world, but all the more important is to learn from one’s mistake and learn from the mistakes of others. Unless one does something relevant to ones potential, it cannot be known for sure what is ones true potential. The potential alone will not be helpful or sufficient to be a super star. It is the ability to mobilize the potential to results is all the more important. When you mobilize the potential to results, you get the experience and wisdom.

For example, when you store water in a dam it has the potential to feed many villages and many acres of land. But in reality, only when the dam is opened the actual feeding to villages and lands start. The potential is important and kinetic is all the more important. This is exactly why people from top notch institutions are hired as CEO even though they have the potential of becoming a CEO. It is necessary that you need to have potential to become CEO but it is not sufficient to become CEO. You need MORE.

The potential is one of the chemical in a reaction. When you make potential to react with your action, you get experience, wisdom, growth and many. I am sure, you have the potential. Get to action. See you at the top.

My Views on Collaboration

At work, I have been given a responsibility of driving a initiative which needs collaboration. The word collaboration is a buzz word which every organization is using. The collaboration seems to be catchy because ten thousand minds together can do wonders rather than ten thought individual minds. Theoretically, it can be proved that it is true however there are difficulties in applying it practically.

In order to be truly collaborative, first thing that you need to knock off is being defense. When something goes wrong, pointing fingers does not help. The moment someone points figures, the entire dynamics of the game shifts and sometimes leads to uncontrollable chaos. Try to not to be defensive.

The second thing that is important is reaching to a consensus. When you truly collaborate with many people, there will be N different views and you cannot simply neglect N-1 views and go with one view abruptly. Also, at the same time, the team needs stop wavering and reach to a conclusion. So the second thing is "reaching to a consensus" democratically and without prolonging the decision making much.

The third thing that is very important or may be we can call the outcome of collaboration. It is understanding among the team members. Somewhere, I heard that fishes teaches their kids ,how to swim, with their eyes. Do you believe it? Is it possible? In fact, the nature is giving us the answer that it is quite possible. Another important thing in collaboration is to identify what your partner/team thinks and address their issues/concerns before they ask you. This third thing is very hardest to achieve and most of us don't even try to do it.

When you put all the three things into use, the possibility of getting disruptive outcome is higher and you can be proud of being collaborative. If you do not do all the three things then it is not collaborating.

Dedicated space for students

I started this blog with primary motive to help students by mentoring them and fill the gaps by interacting with them. When you interact with young minds, you also feel energized and excited. Later, came up with an idea of starting a dedicated website and I was fortunate enough to get help from my friends who are brighter than me.

We also named the initiative and rolled out a month back. We call it as "Open Gyan" and the website address is http://www.opengyan.com. This is the space dedicated for students focusing on filling the gaps, giving them the deserved exposure. I am going to discontinue the posting related to students as we have Open Gyan.

Please visit Open Gyan.

Focus on state not on Status

I happened to hear one of the best discourses of Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda where He talks about “Being in the state” and “Being in the status”. He talks about the students seeking a Guru are focused on the status and not paying attention to the state of the Guru. This particular thought can be applied anywhere not necessarily to Guru-Disciple relationship. This is an eye-opener and this differentiates a true Karma Yogi from the rest of the others.

When you focus on the state and have an eye on the state of the master, it leads to inspiration and ultimately leads to status of the master. On a contrary, if you focus on the status, you become blind to see the state of the Guru. This remembers me a great story of a Guru. A student goes to a great Guru. He asks, “How much time will it take for me to become a scholar”. The Guru tells, “fifteen years. Then student asks, “If I double the hard work”. The Guru says, “It will take you thirty years”. The message is pretty clear focus on the state and not the status.

We can apply the same concept to management without changing even changing it a bit. If one wants to become a leader (otherwise CXO), we need to understand that it is not a position but a state. It is state of delivering, state of accountability, state of being responsible for the stakeholders, state of having highest level of integrity, state of accepting and so on. This remembers me the words of great motivation and leadership guru Robin Sharma “Leadership without Title” where he says that anyone can be leader as it is quality. It is not a certificate or a degree. The phrase “Leadership without Title” is another way of putting “Being in the state, not in status”.

We need to work hard to reach the state and prove so many things on the way, pass so many litmus tests. But once you reach the state, then you do not need to prove to anyone that you are capable. The very nature of our state will make us to act right and the state manifests itself in so many possible ways. The state brings you the status, yet we will not focus on the status.