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.

Dream comes true

It has been a very long wait and the chicken took too much time to hatch. Finally the dream of starting an initiative to help out students seeking exposure in IT. It is three year aspiration and more than four months of thinking, debate and discussion. Finally, it was a happiest moment and one of the fulfilling moments in my life when we launched Open Gyan last night. As of now, we have the web existence and eagerly waiting of physical existence.

Please check out our new website Open Gyan

As of now, Badhri and myself are writing something there. If you are passionate to share your knowledge and if you can write articles in simple English, please do email us.

GridGain - Yet another short blog on Grid Computing

Sometime back, I wrote a blog on Grid computing. I came across the definition of Grid Computing from Wikipedia and my knowledge on Grid computing is very negligible if not zero. The concept by itself is very interesting. One the reasons why Grid Computing did not find its place with enterprises is due lack of flexibility. I was chatting with my friend Veerabahu on Grid computing. We were talking about JPPF (Java Parallel Processing Framework).

Few days after that my friend sent a message about another Java based Grid Computing framework "Gridgain". I was very much impressed with documentation and tutorials. I am yet to try the software and probably it may take few minutes to complete a simple application that has some task running in a remote machine.

My first impression about GridGain is that it is simple to use.

Though the concept around grid computing was sound, it did not get enough respect due lack of flexibility and the authors of GridGain say that "GridGain" makes Grid computing much easier.

May in a week or so, I will be writing yet another blog on "GridGain" and share my experiences with GridGain.

Mini Project #3 - Process Tree in Linux

Mini Project #3 - Process Tree in Linux

A process is a program in execution together with a state comprising of open files, environment variables and pending signal. In any operating system, a process is normally created by another process. And the process dies when it calls the system call "exit" explicitly or implicitly. Each process has relationships with other processes in the system. This mini project is to write a simple tool that dumps the process tree - how one process is related to other processes. The output can be text which can be parsed by other tools.

You have come up with the format and information that should be displayed which can be of use to the users of the tool. The information can be like state, total run time, files opened and pending signals. Here the key is the performance and hence implementing this kernel module or system call is recommended. Initially, the focus should be on getting the information not the formatting the data. Later, the output from the kernel module or system call can be read by parsers implemented in Java or other programming languages.

After implementing this mini projects, the team members will get a good understanding on Linux kernel, important data structures and they can continue to learn Linux on their own by just walking through Linux source code. If you are interested, please submit your intent through email.

All the mini-projects hosted here are open and free. Free to learn and free to be modified. This is a attempt to help students community. This mini project and all other mini projects help you understand the respective areas and gives you insight by doing it.

Two best books on Linux Kernel Internals

Linux is one of most popular kernels around and it will continue to be the darling till foreseeable future. Linux is not Unix. Though it has taken the best practices from Unix and it never pulled off in pushing back some of the concepts which were not good. Today, Linux is growing to be one of the best server operating systems, embedded operating systems and also powering super computers. Linux powers watches to super computers and over a period of time, it has become platform independent.

Over a period of time many Linux distributions evolved and many of the distributions are widely deployed. If you find any Linux geeks and find that they will already have a distribution on their own. Interesting the surprise is not so much for people who stop with user space. If Linux user space surprises you and it is good for you to stop there if you have a weak heart. The surprise will be more and excitement will be more when you start see what is inside, leave alone understanding it. When you start smelling the code, you start understanding it.

But for dull guys like me, having a book or two that explains about Linux kernel indeed help a lot. After hovering Internet for Linux kernel books, I found two books. FYI, this happened three years back. The first book that caught my eyes was "Linux Kernel Development" and the second one was "Understanding the Linux Kernel". I preferred to buy Linux Kernel Development simply because it was thin and I thought it would be easy read. I deferred buying the second book. By decision of buying Linux Kernel Development was right. This books teaches the readers about Linux kernel and importantly you do not need to be a kernel developer. If you have fair programming experience and logical reasoning, you will understand almost 95% of the book. The author, Robert Love explanations and commentary was so lucid and one can practically validate the learning by hacking Linux source code. If you are starting to learn Linux, I recommend you to soon come to kernel space and it will be great experience if you start your journey with this great book.

After reading the chapters on Process, scheduling and system calls in Linux kernel development, you will certainly get a burning desire to hack Linux. That is where the second book comes handy. The second book "Understanding the Linux Kernel" is an handbook with numerous pages with lot of details about the implementation and design decisions. You will find a lot of code taken from Linux source code and explained side by side. My recommendation would be read the chapters in the first book and follow it up with the corresponding chapters in the second book. Then first open the source code and validate what authors say. The learning and understanding will be effective if you complete at least one cycle - First book, second book and source code. You understanding will improve when you repeat the cycles number of times.

Be one of the many guys who smells what Linux kernel is, it is lifetime opportunity.