Monthly Archives: March 2010

developer

How to handle Developers!

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Here are a few tips if you get pushed to managing a team of code monkeys..err..developers.

1. Deadline is 8 hours away and they are whiling away time by reading Joel Sposky or watching a South Indian actor dancing in a superman costume.

Ignore this – they are just warming up.

2. After the above intellectual stimulation they go for coffee.

Again, be patient. They are refueling.

3. Call them for a meeting to explain how grave the situation is. Only 6 hours is left.

Stop stop. Don’t call them for a meeting now, it will just drain the warm up and caffeine effect they are having now. They are about to enter their “zone” where things will start “flowing”.

4. How to know what the status is?

Hmm..it is a difficult thing. If you send an IM or an email it will interrupt their flow which will make them very angry, or they might mistake you for micro managing things. Wait for one of the developers to go for a bathroom break and follow them there. Of course you should be of the same gender.

There you ask – hi hows it going you are aware of the deadline today right? If the specimen nonchalantly asks – “what deadline” – don’t panic. He is just messing with you. In fact the developers are very conscious of not being fired / or not getting the next hike – they usually would have a mammoth credit card bill – because of a 3G iPhone, or a flight ticket to Ladakh..

So don’t worry..patiently explain to him that the clients want this by EOD – so it will be great if we can deliver it. He will just say a hmm and will take his own sweet time to comb his hair, or gargle, or one of the thousand things he can do to frustrate you – so do not wait for him but move back to your seat. Things are going smooth – if there was any problem or the deadline cannot be met he would have told you – trust me on this.

5. You see a few developers packing their bags

Time to go ask your QA team if everything is fine. If you had not troubled the developers throughout the day there is a good chance the stuff is done well and your team has met the deadline. Now you can prepare for the telecon with the clients and draft the congratulatory email to the team.

Of course it is not this cut and dry. Use your judgement – you will get better at it as you go. Understanding the developers mindset is having half the battle won.

environment

Earth hour is a sick joke on us

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So you participated in the Earth Hour? Good for you – this will encourage Bescom ( or TNEB or whatever entity ) to give more power cuts – Oh so our customers don’t want power – lets cut some more. 

There are so many power cuts in a day for varying durations. Our office UPS beeps almost the entire day – and I have started getting “flow” when I hear the beeps. At times when the beep stops ( because power is back ) I start browsing and cannot concentrate on my work.

We have placed an order for one more home and lighting UPS – Jan Feb we were able to manage without a fan, but now it is unbearably hot. The term “sweat equity” takes a different meaning for us! 

Anyway, I applaud the western world to interrupt the power for an hour in a year. Great. I wish they do it every week. And also they switch off the AC and lighting on weekends when they leave office. 

And we Indians – let us see how to increase power production. I initially thought I will go with the flow and participate in Earth Hour – but later realised we are kicking ourselves in the butt – why will I sit in darkness – let me enjoy the little power Bescom had blessed us with. 

With the nuclear technology US is going to give us ( thanks to Manmohanjee risking his turban et all ) , I am waiting for some enterprising hackers from national market to  come up with a desk top mini nuclear fission reactor to ease our power woes. I will buy one – even if it is going to mutate me into an ogre!





inspiration, occ, startup

Sharad Sharma’s talk in Bangalore OCC – Mar 21

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Today I attended the Bangalore Open Coffee Club’s meeting in an interesting venue called Jaaga. Before I  jump into Mr.Sharad Sharma’s speech / adrenaline shot – will talk a little about Jaaga. It is spear headed by Freeman Murray and Archana Prasad. They have identified an unused piece of land – and has built this structure with minimal and eco-friendly materials. This space can be used by NGOs or communities who want a place to get together, startups can come and plug in etc.  They call it the Urban Community Art Architecutre Experiment – http://jaaga.wikidot.com/start. Brilliant concept and I am sure you will be visiting this place sometime in future – it is going to take off well. 
Now to the Orbit Change Catalyst’s lecture ( thats his twitter bio  http://twitter.com/sharads ) 
Mr.Sharad Sharma took us through his entrepreneurial journey and kept giving his insights and his learning peppered with lot of interesting anecdotes.
1. Innovation Blow back

Innovations are happening right now in India; a few being cataract surgeries, cardiac operations at low cost and better success rates, bio technology startups, products on cloud computing, and so on. These technologies / businesses will now start out of the emerging markets like India and will become global. This is the innovation blow back.
He also asked the crowd to look out for the “Inflexion points” – Oil crisis is one, Systems biology is one ( where probability / mathematics is needed to take Biology to the next level ), Cloud computing being another. He advised to identify the inflexion point that excites you – “pick the one that tickles you to death”.
Some interesting anecdotes:
* CDMA technology – first showed up in Korea ( because they could not penetrate US, Europe market where GSM was entrenched ) – and now it is percolating to the other regions.
* Airtel is having a return of 38% ARPU – Additional Revenue Per User. Whereas Verizon’s return is only 12%. IBM, who consulted Airtel,  is now taking this business model outside India.
* AT&T approached Infosys in 1993 for a buy out. Mr.Narayanan Murthy politely declined – and today Infosys has 3 times market cap than AT&T.
*It took $89 Million to launch Chandrayaan. Ning has so far obtained $140 Million as investment.
He also touched upon Early Adopters Vs Pragmatic Adopters and how today with the recession – the market is left with only Pragmatic Adopters ( who make the purchase decision only after they are convinced of the ROI and expect a whole product unlike the early adopter who makes quick decision after a view of the part product itself) – and Indian market always had only Pragmatic Adopters. He hit it right on the head; if you have sold to Indian customers you will know this first hand. 
He credited Guy Kawasaki for starting this “Bootstrap movement” – where the startup has to think of making money from day 1 – unlike the startups during the dot com boom.
2. Essence of Entrepreneurship

It’s a state of mind and there are a few important things
Be comfortable to be the underdog
Hold a contrarian point of view
Ability to influence without control
Ability to tell stories.
3. Rules for personal conduct

He said 7, but I missed one of them 🙂
Give more than what you take
Set up people for success
Say what you mean. Do what you say
Share good news and bad news
Cultivate a learning mindset.
Cultivate internal drive for excellence 
Some books he suggested during his lecture that I will be adding to my reading list.
1. Getting to Plan B by Randy Komisar and John Mullins 
2. Crossing the Chasm – Geoffrey A Moore
3. Whole new mind – Daniel Pink
Towards the end he conducted a role play of how VC money, Investor (LP) and Startup funding works and why it is essential to pitch for only the amount a Startup really needs. 
This post is definitely not a complete record of the speech. Please add more if you were also at the event.
Finally it was great networking with lot of enthusiastic people – the next google / apple is brewing somewhere in them! Thanks to Amarinder, Ramjee, Vaibav and other organizers of the OCC for this event. 
cricket, ipl

What the doctor ordered!

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AI – Ad Industry
Doc – The Wise Doc

AI : Doc – we need a way to show ads on prime time.
Doc : Ok?

AI : We need to show ads every 2 minutes
Doc : Hmm.

AI : Is it even possible or are we greedy?
Doc : Any thing is possible my dear AI. There is a religion worshipped by Indians that we can exploit. It is called Cricket. Let us come up with a 20 over format and force the players to play fast – so you can show ads every 2 minutes – between the overs. Also encourage the batsmen to treat their wickets with scant respect – so they will get out quicker – and you can show more ads during that time.

AI : What about replays?
Doc : Screw the replays – no one will care how the batsman got out – either he will be clean bowled or caught somewhere on the boundary line.

AI : That is wonderful. God bless your wisdom tooth.
Doc : You are welcome my dear friend. Even though you did not ask I will give you one more opportunity to show more ads – introduce a “strategic time-out”. The viewer will now wait eagerly and guess the new strategy – and meanwhile he will watch all the ads you throw at him.

AI : Brilliant.

And so happened IPL1, IPL2, IPL3…. and so the soap mobile soda sellers became rich, the cricketainers become richer, the worshippers wasted their prime years watching cricket and tweeting and blogging.. err..hmm..ok bye 🙂