An ad Idea

*this is written in hindi english mix as i was planning to post it on FB


Kindly visualize the story to get the feel

Ek middle class family ki subah ka sceen (dadaji aram kursi pe bethe paper padh rahe hein, wife parathe bana rahi he aur husband tayyar ho raha hai. Husband ka mobile bajta hai (husband ki mnc me job karta hai). Wo late hota rehta he to speaker pe dal deta he aur tie theek karne lagta hai. Udhar door bell bajti he wife darwaja kholti hai. Dekhti hai ki raddi wala hota hai. Usko gate pe hi rukne ka bol ke wo raddi (newspapers, purani magazines etc) lene chali jatai hai.

Photography workshop for students of Y! Parikrama School.

Recently I conducted a Photography workshop for students of  Y! Parikrama School.

school wall painted by students

I along with Madan, Shakira and Abhinav (all Yahoos) visited Yahoo! Parikrama School last Friday. During our visit apart from conducting the workshop we also got a chance to meet the principal madam. She is a very energetic and charismatic lady. She explained us the way they are running the school and the kind of fantastic result they are getting. The school helps to identify and groom the talent in the students. They keep on conducting acting, music, sports, painting etc. workshops and trainings for their students and even support them to participate in state/national level events. They are trying to build a school in which a child will always happily look forward to go to.It actually reminded me of the school ‘Amir Khan’ build in ‘3 idiots’.

Visit to Bannerghatta National Park

On the lazy Sunday morning I along with my friends –Aditya, Shiva and Vipul, left IIM Bangalore campus to check out Bannerghatta National Park. Before starting we googled for directions and reviews and it really helped. We now knew that we need to catch bus no. 365 that will directly drop us at park’s gate.We reached there around 11 a.m. but by that time queue had already taken shape of the largest reptile :P It would have easily taken 1-2 hrs had we also lined up. I did some “Jugaad” :P and we got the tickets of grand safari in minutes. Now we have to wait for the forest bus which came in about 15 min.

Grand Safari
I was praying that there should not be any children or girls in our bus because they cannot keep quite even for an hour. But as it was Sunday so I guess God was also sleepy by that time. Finally we started for a 16km safari. Bannerghatta National park is divided into fenced zone and roads covering every part of zone. So citing is almost sure. In around 15minutes bus reached in dense forest area and we started spotting animals. Spotted dear, Sambar, Ducks were among the first few. I took out my camera and figured that I did the biggest blunder of the day. I forgot the batteries at my place…ahhh. Luckily I had an extra set in my bag but it was not fully charged.

Shivsamudram Trek and waterfalls

It was my 2^nd free weekend in Bangalore and I along with 3 other friends Aditya, Vipul and Satyam, decided to go to Majestic Shivasamudram Waterfalls. While deciding the place I asked many bangalorians about whether it is the right time to go there as it was midsummer. Most of them either said no or said they don’t know. Oh what the heck, finally we decided to go ahead with the plan. We hired a cab and reached there at around 12 in the noon.  It was a sunny day and at the first site the place looked only OK as neither the valley nor the fall was visible.

Photoshop cs5: Top 5 features

I realized lot of  my friends are interested in photography and design. So I thought it might a good idea to post some of the useful Photoshop tutorials available over internet. In this series here is the first video showcasing the power of Photoshop cs5. Top 5 features

Printable Photo calendar 2011

I know it is a bit late to publish a calendar now but as it is said its better to be late then never. So here is the link for an easily printable photo calendar 2011 with few of my selected photographs, marked Indian holidays and plenty of notes space. hope you all find it useful.

thanks to Krishna for suggesting this.
let me know what you all think of this  :)

http://www.4shared.com/file/NaEJr0o9/Photocalendar.html

How to decide Vision and Mission Statements for your company

Parameters which should be kept in mind while making Vision and Mission statements for your company: 

1. Clarity: A Vision statement should be clear in the terms what company wants to achieve and what are the goals it has set for itself 
2. Motivation: Vision statement must be motivating for the associates working for the company. they should always feel proud and get propelled to work every time they read it 
3. Ethical: Vision statement should also portray that company will always follow ethical practices in order to achieve the goal
4.  Comprehensible:  A vision statement should be easily understandable for all the stack holders (vendors, clients, employees and society). For the same reason it should not use any jargon, industry specific terminologies or complex sentence structures 
5. Sync with business: company’s vision statement should be in sync with the kind of business it does. For making a flashy vision statement company should not depart from the sole reason of its existence 
6. Guiding Star: A company’s vision should always provide guidance to its employees in situation of dilemma.

Mystery of dead birds falling from sky

First of all a happy national bird day to all the bird lovers. As I was surfing web, checking photos and reading the articles about the day a shocking piece of news grabbed my attention. It was about the dead birds falling from sky in Arkansas and Louisiana, NA. Now when I searched deep in this matter I found similar incident took place in other countries too like Brazil and Japan. Though all the govt. and local agencies have given different reasons and theories for the massive deaths but none of them is sure about what has actually happened. 

It all started on the very 1^st day of 2011 in Arkansas where an estimated 5,000 red-winged blackbirds dropped dead from the sky. In the small town of Beebe in central Arkansas, scientists said celebratory fireworks on New Year’s Eve likely sent thousands of discombobulated blackbirds into such a tizzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other before plummeting to their deaths. "The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level" to avoid explosions above, said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Next generation email and messenger system

Given the pace of technological revolution I don’t see bandwidth or mobility be of any problem in the future. So what should be the features of email and messenger services 10 years down the line.

Let us start with analyzing what all we have now..text, audio and even video (as video resumes have already picked up). So I think it is now time to add feelings and Intelligence to computers and mobiles.

Local Language Products

Finished writing a 2 page business plan in 2 hours (constraint). I am writing this post because i found the case interesting and smoking. so thought of posting my plan here to get a feedback on how i did and how it can be improved.

case was about local language products. Internet users in India are only 10% of the total population as compare to 40% of that of China. The main reason is lack of regional content on net.

I am using X in place of original company name to avoid complexity

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Motivational factors for entrepreneurship

General perception towards entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is generally considered an uncertain and difficult carrier path. One has to face problems and frustration associated with new business development. There is also a misconception that a large number of entrepreneurial ventures fail within few years. A study carried out by Kirchhoff in 1994 shows that only 18% of the small firms surveyed reported loss to creditors.

Research: Motivational Theories and factors for entrepreneurship

Herron and Sapienza (1992, p. 49) stated, “Because motivation plays an important part in the creation of new organizations, theories of organizational creation that fail to address this notion are incomplete”.

A lot of research has been done in this field to identify the basic motivational factors for entrepreneurs and identify the common traits in them McClelland in 1961 argued that a high need for achievement was a personality trait common to entrepreneurs. In spite of the plethora of research it is still difficult to say what actually motivates entrepreneurs as they are highly idiosyncratic and innovative.

The motivational theories for entrepreneurship can be divided into two categories 1. Content theories: search for the specific things within individuals that initiate, direct, sustain, and stop behavior. 2. Process theories explain how behavior is initiated, directed, sustained, and stopped. Gilad and Levine in 1986 proposed two different theories- Push theory and Pull theory. The “push” theory says persons are forced to opt the way of entrepreneur as there is no other way left for them. External factors such as job dissatisfaction/loss, incapable of switching the job, low salary, or inflexible and boring work. On the other hand The “pull” theory suggests that individuals are attracted towards entrepreneurial activities because of the high independence, prosperity and self-sufficiency attached to it. A research done by Keeble et al., 1992; Orhan and Scott, 2001 indicates that pull factors are more prevalent than push factors.

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Often decision between a career of self employment or working for others is taken considering the three factors shown below in the diagram

Research of Gerry Segal, Dan Borgia and Jerry Schoenfeld

In a research done by Gerry Segal, Dan Borgia and Jerry Schoenfeld, they found that risk taking capabilities has direct correlation with individuals engagement in entrepreneurial activities. Even though the individual have interest in self employment and might posses the self confidence to carry that but if the risk appetite is absent then there is high probability that he or she will keep on postponing the start. They concluded that there are five outcomes emphasized as criteria in the decision between self-employment or being employed by others: income potential; financial security; independence; need for achievement; and escape from corporate bureaucracy.

Measures to promote entrepreneurship

Educators and policy makers should highlight the advantages of taking moderate, calculated risks to get ahead. Examples of the rewards that can result from risking an entrepreneurial endeavor abound. Many of our most successful executives, including Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and many others achieved their success by taking the risk of launching their own ventures.



Disclaimer : Article is Based on the research paper “The motivation to become an entrepreneur” by Gerry Segal, Dan Borgia and Jerry Schoenfeld

Wolf-Moon

Wolf-Moon or Full moon when it is closest to earth

Albino Peacock

dancing white peacock

Online Identity: A Risky Business

Although websites such as Facebook and MySpace experienced exponential growth during the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, some users remain oblivious to the fact that the information they post online can come back to haunt them. First, employers can monitor employees who maintain a blog, photo diary, or website. Employers can look for controversial employee opinions, sensitive information disclosures, or wildly inappropriate conduct. For example, a North Carolina newspaper fired one of its features writers after she created a blog on which she anonymously wrote about the idiosyncrasies of her job and coworkers.

The second unintended use of information from social networking websites is employers who check on prospective employees. A June 11, 2006 New York Times article reported that many companies recruiting on college campuses use search engines and social networking websites such as MySpace, Xanga, and Facebook to conduct background checks. Although the use of MySpace or Google to scrutinize a student’s background is somewhat unsettling to many undergraduates, the Times noted that the utilization of Facebook is especially shocking to students who believe that Facebook is limited to current students and recent alumni.

Corporate recruiters and prospective employers are not the only people interested in college students’ lives. The third unintended use of social networking websites is college administrators who monitor the Internet—especially Facebook—for student misconduct. For example, a college in Boston’s Back Bay expelled its student Government Association President for joining a Facebook group highly critical of a campus police sergeant. In addition, fifteen students at a state university in North Carolina faced charges in court for underage drinking because of photos that appeared on Facebook.

Although more users of websites such as Facebook are becoming aware of the potential pitfalls of online identities, many regular users still fail to take three basic security precautions. First, only make your information available to a specific list of individuals whom you approve. Second, regularly search for potentially harmful information about yourself that may have been posted by mistake or by a disgruntled former associate. Third, never post blatantly offensive material under your name or on your page as, despite the best precautions, this material will likely make its way to the wider world. By taking these simple steps, members of the digital world can realize the many benefits of e-community without experiencing some of the damaging unintended consequences

Water V2.0

As the Monsoon is getting delayed, the water problem is again raising in India.In some cities people are still fighting for even drops of water. This is not the first time we are facing such scenario, it is a pathetic story of every other year. here I tried to find out why? Because in summer when there is scarcity of water everyone thinks twice before wasting a drop of water but as soon as monsoon arrives we forget the tragic past months and start wasting water again. Here the pity is we waste most when we can conserve best. Water recharging systems are good solutions for water conservation. Inspite of several discount schemes by Govt. (like 5% off on Property tax for the first year) the recharging systems are not popular among the masses because of the initial costs involved in setting up the system.

Here I thought of a simple process - effective and much cheaper than water recharging systems. I am naming this as Water V2.0 as we will be using the used water again in this method. What I propose is to simply install a switch in bathroom which can toggle between the two water outlets. The water outlets will eventually open in with and without soap water storage tanks respectively. That’s it. The setup is complete. The major change what we are doing here is instead of letting the used water go into drainage we are storing that in tanks. The Diagram below will help you visualize the concept.



Now after this small installation all you need to do is just toggle the switch while bathing. Once when you start pouring water on yourself and second before you start applying soap while bathing so that we can store with and without soap water separately.

The soap water can be used for:
• Flushing toilets.
• First wash of the floors/vehicles.

Without soap water can be used for:
• Watering the plants
• Final wash of floor/vehicles.

By now you must be thinking –How much effective will this whole system be? Let me put some numbers on the chart to measure that. The below table is avg. water requirement on an adult for the routine activities.




This gives an estimate of around 24,041 liters of yearly water requirement per person. Let’s say we will use only without soap water again. Still we have 5425 liters of water to reuse which can fulfill our total need of watering plants, washing vehicles, washing floors and flushing toilets and still leave us with 400 liters of reusable water. Let me remind you here till now we have only used without soap water, we still have 5425 liters of soap water, which can be filtered and used for above purposes.

Around 30% of water required yearly can be saved this way and can be used when it is actually needed. So what say guys, I am for sure going to have this in my home. Even planning to file a patent for this ;)

Water Droplets

Its raining over here in Pune and I am playing clicking game in the rain. Trying to capture the beauty of water droplets on leaves.

Markets moves or Analysts drive

Buy Satyam MktPrz: 77 Target: 100 - JP Morgan
Buy Zee News MktPrz: 45 Target: 66 - Sharekhan
Sell Ambuja Cement MktPrz: 98 Target: 86 - Angel Broking

Such flashing tips can be easily seen on any business channel. In fact on screens TV channels have reserved permanent slots for them. Daily Brokers will flood your mobile inbox by sms and mails of trading calls. Are these tips actually worthy and trustful?

Such tips steer the volatility in the markets. Thousands of people trust these tips and buy and sell according to it. Tips very uses the main driving factor of sharer market i.e. rumors. For example say a run a broking company with a large customer database. I send them a tip buy share X @ Rs. 100 and sell @ Rs. 150 without any technical analysis. This message reaches millions of people in seconds thanks to information technology. Now say out of million half a million takes this call seriously. They think Research Analysts are saying to buy at this prize means this share will not fall beyond this prize and purchase the share. A lot of money has been put into the market on that share at that prize. Since information of buying and selling of every second is visible to all a sudden positive reaction comes from the market. People think yes the tip was true and the remaining people also start investing in that share and the value keep increasing.



Similar but opposite pattern took place as the share reaches the target assigned by analyst. People start selling that stock, believing that it will not grow beyond that. Heavy profit booking turns the market sentiments negative and bears come into play. As a result share value again declines from the target.
This is how brokerage firms and analysts keep on riding the waves of market sentiments and keep earning the profit irrespective of the ups and down of the market.

They are analysts not prophets so they can see the future. No share in the market is bond to follow supports and resistances, as the future moving trend will not be a mirror image of the past trend. This is the reason why half the times there tips and predictions go waste. But still it is better to follow tips as you will be in sync with the market after all they are the ultimate dictators of the financial jungle.

Work from Home

Global economy has seen a sharp decline in recent pass. Companies as a protective measure are trying to cut cost from every possible corner."Work from Home" is one such solution. Initially people may feel left out and without supervision but gradually they will feel more comfortable. This will also let them manage their personal and professional goals. Therefore it will finally result into more valued and stronger bond between employee and employer.

Work from Home policy has many benefits first and foremost important is for the company and that is reduced cost per associate work space, electricity and system. Companies will save a lot of money in each of them since expenses for one work station per month may vary from 5,000 to 20,000 in a big corporate.

It will also save time and cost to commute to Associates. Though it is said that one should mix his personal and professional life but flexi hours do this in an effective manner. For example take a case of working women who is pregnant or taking care of a new born. Absence of Flexi hour will leave them no option but to take either sabbatical, long leave or resigning from the job. Now with functional work from home they can very well manage home and work with better efficiency.

Associates will feel more valued and relaxed as they are given liberty to work according to their mood. This feeling in them also gives birth to sincerity and responsibility. Hence they will be more productive once trusted. It will also reduce the attrition rate which is also an ill increasing practice by employees now days.
Since it is giving space to professionals it is proving an effective way of reducing cost and improving performance. Hence policies like Work from home and Flexi-hour are gaining popularity in corporate houses. Definitely it has more advantages over traditional office timings.

Image credit: abcnews.com

Who are you

I know my authority and I am no one to mention,
But since you are bothering me, so I need to question,

Who are you?

When I do well, you praise me, u praise me very much,
But actually I realize there was no need of that as such,
You tried hard to amalgam in my pack, to be my friend and mate,
Suddenly you took a step back, when I run out of fate,

When everyone doubted me, everything was going wrong,
When I needed someone on my side, to hold me and feel strong,
You were there, but hiding,
When I was dying & fighting,

I fell down, was shattered and loosing the game,
My eyes were constantly searching for you, but you were nowhere in the frame,
My paranoia breaks and truth was bitter,
All that was a glittering become glimmer,

I gathered remaining strength & learn,
Bad time was fainting and also the marks of burn,
I started rising again, was stronger and doing well,
I was conscious and careful and nowhere to fail,
Suddenly you came out of blue,
I asked gain ‘who are you’

You remained silent & calm,
Welcoming me with open arm,
From where you come, I had no clue,
Still I am standing& asking ‘who are you’.

Indian Television V2.0

Suddenly I started noticing a paradigm shift in Indian silver screen. It seems whole television industry has unanimously decided to move on from usual ‘saas bahu’ serials. Just one year back if you notice Ekta Kapoor s’ serials were toping the TRP. Whether it was ‘KYUKI SAAS BHI KABHI BAHU THI’ or ‘KAHANI GHAR GHAR KI’ they had enchanted audience with their twist and turns. Well I am not sure whether people actually wanted to see those kinds of serials or where bound to do that because of the drought of the good and sensible programs.

Now every TV channel is reviving itself. In the program guide you will find completely new list of TV serials. These new serials are not only been liked by the janta but also spread social awareness. You talk about “UTARAN” (TV Serial on channel COLORS which shows the life, ambitions, problems & emotions of poors), “BALIKA VADHU” (Serial which highlights negativities of child marriage), “NA ANA IS DESH LAADO” (Serial which focuses on women empowerment).

The new era of Indian television does not only focus on awakening conscience but also provides pure entertainment. The increased popularity of reality shows (to name a few BIG BOSS & SARKAR KI DUNIYA) and competitions (talent (DANCE INDIA DANCE, INDIAN IDOL, VOICE OF INDIA, COMEDY CHAMPIONS are few such serials) is well noticed. These programs not only entertain you but also become launch pad for untapped young Indian talent.

It seems family drama, suspense & violence is losing grip and reality, Humor, social subjects and completely new story line is the new mantra of success in this constantly changing and still evolving Indian television industry