Provoke to get a better feedback

You scratch my back and i, surely without fail, can scratch your back. It is professional kick back and it is mutually beneficial. It is dangerous than any scam because you officially institutionalize "back scratching". Everyone knows yet none flags. Kick backs are so sweet. It gives you a feel that the benefits of kick backs outweighs the sweat that you must shed to fix something {in most cases, our attitude}.

Very few and (really) only very few of us provoke people to give great/blunt feedback. Some of us, just love to hear complaints. Provoke people to give great feedback so that both the giver and receiver steps out of their respective comfort zone. The comfort zone of giving the same feedback and the comfort zone of getting the same yummy feedback.

Provoke and question the feedback until it is blunt.

Community And Company

You can run a company for profitability. You can see products/services as something that are getting assembled and you sell those for a margin. There is nothing wrong in it (and equally there isn't anything great either). If you really want to exist, you just keep making profits.

Not good enough these days and not enough any day when you want to make meaning.

You run a company plus run communities.

Communities where people learn how they assemble products and deliver services. They do bold experiments and your company becomes nothing less than a laboratory. They stretch their brain muscle, elevate their thinking and ready to make BIG mistakes.

Open source is a great example. There are many open source products where no one claims ownership but make their contributions count. The success of open source product paves way for great success in future and failures become lessons.

Communities are great way when you want build something ground up. Communities lead to paradigm shift.

Communities inside the company should be the foundation for your company (not just profits).

Ubuntu - Windows Installer

Have been using Ubuntu for quite sometime and was thinking of migrating to 11.10. Since i m coming from an older version of Ubuntu, i badly needed a good dock in 11.10 and i didn't go for Ubuntu 11.1 as platform for all my development @ home (still, i use crap windows at work).

I just wanted to try converting Ubuntu 11.10 as my dev station. Without much of hassle, i downloaded ISO image. While i was downloading, i happen to see Windows installer this time (with only selfish motive of converting my windows workstation) and wanted to give it a try.

I also downloaded "wubi.exe" and installed it in one of my windows machine. I didn't face any issue either installation or setting up Ubuntu 11.1. I downloaded few tools needed for my development like Gvim, Emacs, Eclipse and VLC Player (don't ask me why. i hear songs when doing development). Everything was effortless. (windows only users should make a note of this. try migrating to Ubuntu :-)).

How can i get a dock (which can hold all my application launchers)? I searched a bit and found out "Cairo-dock". I m quite impressed with the features that are offered by "Cairo". You can customize the applets, docks and various other themes. If you have Ubuntu, you should really try Cairo-dock.

After couple of hours, my Ubuntu looked like this.

Try WUBI - http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/windows-installer

Second Workshop in 2012

Sometime back, we happen to start an initiative Open Gyan and conducted few guest lectures in 2009/2010/2011. We went to around 10 colleges around Chennai and met up with principals and Head of Departments.

This year seems to be going really well (social media is really working out). We were originally thinking of conducting workshops (focus on hands-on training than guest lectures/theoretical sessions.) on basics of computer science/programming and i m glad that we kick started that this year. Last month, we had a workshop in Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering College @ Perambalur. We happen to test drive our workshop (and my brand new Fiat Linea Emotion Pack) on Linux and Network Programming.

I m yet again glad to share with you that we would spending another day of workshop early next month (we have booked our tickets) in Coimbatore.

Everyday, we are spending at least 30 minutes in customizing our content/delivery and i ought to say that it is a tremendous opportunity to share knowledge and improve myself. If you have any comments, feedback based out of your personal experience in interacting with freshers at your workplace, please do let us know. We would love to listen to you in the interest of thousands of professionals out there in schools.

Again, thank you for all your support (tweeting, likings in Facebook and forwarding personal emails) and your support should take us a long way.

Steep, Steep, Steep

There are two types of work.

The first type is to take up something that appears to be steep (learning curve) but isn't steep really when you sit back and reflect. We can take up this type of work just to impress others or ourselves (and it would pay off well). The work that you are accustomed with also falls in this category. People will fake that they are recognizing you when there isn't so much to recognize.

The second type of work is the real steep one. If you choose this work, you should be ready to fail because you are stretching your elastic limit and there is whole a lot of possibility of you being torn apart (and there is equal possibility of you stretching your limits consistently).

Choosing the type of work is really a choice, the choice you make everyday and your choice decides your experience.

Being with RIGHT GUY and turning UPSIDE DOWN

Changing the status quo needs a vision. You got to know where you want to go. It is your "point zero".

Only then comes the resources. Most of the times, you just don't commit to a change initiative thinking of resources. Resources are assumed to be available when you need them.

If you are convinced enough that you have to change and facilitate a change, the next important thing is being with RIGHT people. I m not saying you need to be with a visionary. I m just saying that you got to be with someone who sees tomorrow, next month or probably next couple of years. The way he is seeing may not be consistent. But the key is seeing tomorrow.

As long as he sees "some tomorrow", he is the guy and he is going to question you and probably shake things up to make tomorrow little better.

Be with RIGHT guy and turning UPSIDE DOWN would be a wonderful experience. You will simply love being part of such a change.

It is NOT how much you have

It is not really important how much you have. The important thing is how much can you share.

The world will run and it is not going to stop if you don't give. It gives you an opportunity everyday to give just to transform you.

I never thought that we would get an opportunity to conduct our second workshop in 2012 in a short time. If everything goes good, we should be conducting our second workshop very soon.

We did our first workshop of 2012 in for MCA students of Dhanalakshmi Engineering College on Linux/Network Programming. Really nice students. Hope we did well there :-). Looking forward to improve our content, exercises and delivery in upcoming sessions.

If you want to spread a word, please use the following link

Linux Programming Interface

Your age means nothing to people

The days have changed. People generally don't accept things. Don't think that they don't trust you. They test it, explore it and experience it. Good thing?

It applies to people too.

Don't expect people to follow you just by your age (either at home or work).

People will like you and people will respect you. Likes and Respects are given your personality and age. It is different. It is purely because we are social.

People follow those who think, ask questions and set them directions (but not actually directing them how to do it).

The age and thinking have little relation. Yes, it is related to extent to which the biologically our brain starts to develop (biologically the human brain development start prenatal, every human being has an opportunity to be a thinker even before they are born). Once it is developed well, it depends on how you use it.

(Technically and practically) A child can think much better than grown-ups.


So, your age means nothing to people but your thinking REALLY MATTERS.

Privilege Vs Proud

When someone look up to you to enhance their thinking, it is not proud moment but rather a privileged moment.

Not all do it. It is not because that it is not innate. It is because we fail to recognize them - guys who honestly want to improve their thinking. If we recognize, we add value to them and to ourselves.

And we have to believe (and it is truth too), improving others thinking is two way street. Don't think that you are only improving them. Their mere honest and commitment in fact enhances your thinking. So, enhancing the thinking can only be MUTUAL (it is NOT one-way street) - congregation of thinkers.

First workshop in 2012

We have been thinking of conducting workshops for students for quite sometime and glad that we came up with one. We will be presenting our  workshop on Linux/Network Programming and our first workshop in 2012 in an Engineering college near Trichy on 4-Feb.

Hoping to cover Linux, Computer Networks & Protocols and Socket Programming. It is going to be a day's long  and we would be spending half-a-day on hands-on, involving the students to write some code. That is going to be a lot of fun for us and learning too.

Here is the link of our initiative.

Link to our workshop page

We are starting with Linux User Space Programming. If everything goes well, we are planning to bring more stuff like Datastructures & Algorithms, Programming, and Linux Internals. That's so much of fun. Isn't it?

Thinking of spreading a work around, hit the like button (or choose any of the options - Facebook, Twitter, forward the link - you have options :-) ).

Be careful about social media

Many of us use social media especially facebook, twitter and linkedin in our everyday's life.

We spend too much time in reading updates of our friends (liking them, disliking them and commenting them) and this takes away equal amount of time from the other aspects of our life. If offices came up strict rules on facebook and ask their employees to reduce facebook usage, we try to get a tablet or cell phone and provide status updates even from loo. Normal usage is fine, but what is normal usage? Every individual should have a limit on how many hours they spend online and limit it to what they feel it normal. I think, we can recognize it by just profiling our profile and the duration we spend online in social media.

But what we cannot recognize is long term mental hazards. There was an article published that states that the brain of internet addict looks very similar to that of a drug addict. May be we are not addicted to internet, but i feel that many of us provide  status updates and we should try to filter out the ones that cannot be shared. Either someone dashed you in the road and if you are slightly limping or you had a small encounter with your boss at office, your facebook status shows it all. Facebook sometimes becomes so sarcastic.

I feel that it is very dangerous to share everything as you will be chewing the anger little longer time and one becomes little more reactive. Within few years, there is a possibility of one becoming hyper-reactive.

Googled and found this article. It is always good to get different point of view - http://thurs.hubpages.com/hub/Negative-Effects-of-Facebook-Addiction

Another video from TED