Hiatus

Every once in a while comes along a time when u wan2 scribble a lot but is not possible cos many things are not in conjunction to letting that happen. Blogging for me is one such thing cos I have absolutely no internet access except for the pithy internet i can get through my cellphone which can act as a portable wi fi hotspot streaming at pitiable internet speed thereby making blogging very hard task. Hence it is kinda hard for me to blog n it would be sort of awkward to say I m on a hiatus from blogosphere. Till next post n probably with much better internet speed, I ll bring the latest updates from my life.
Nik

10 days of Mumbai –> 10-Apr-12

Though I wanted to do a post titled 12 days of Mumbai on the lines of 12 days of Christmas, I am cutting it short to 10 days of Mumbai. One of the reasons for it being, 12 days ll be too long as there are many things happening on any given time and day and hence this post.
The day i landed in Mumbai was a Sunday and hence I did not get to experience the crowd and madness that people associate with the city and it was a pretty peaceful day. I spent the day at my uncle’s home and had a gr8 being (almost) pampered by my uncle, aunt and my 2 cousins, Mayur and Manali. A lazy day filled with lots of gr8 food and even better company. It was like being at home except that I was in Mumbai.
The next day, 2 April, was my first day at work and was filled with too many incidents. My uncle offered to drop me to office and even though we started out early, it took us a good 2 hours to reach office, not to mention the innumerable traffic snarls we had to endure. The day was filled with presentations after presentations and was literally bored to death. the ride back home was in a bus, did not wan2 experience the infamous mumbai local. The journey lasted another 2 hours and i managed to reach home at 9 30pm.Lots of chatter followed the awesome dinner my aunt had prepared and was promptly followed by sleep.
Day 2 at office started by a ride in the local train from borivali to ghatkopar which was followed by innumerable presentations. Almost towards the end of day we got a not so pleasant shock that we had to shift to a hotel where we were to be accommodated before 12 am. My aunt had sent the vehicle to office to pick us up and then help us shift to Airoli where we were to be located for next few days. after a harrowing journey, I managed to reach by 11pm. the room was awesome but located in a remote area of Mumbai. Too far to go to my uncle’s place.
Day 3: I reported to new office in Airoli and met my managed. My manager asked about my aspirations and much to my surprise, he said I would be working in quite a few roles and capacities. the day was one in which i got to meet quite a few people, met my cool college senior Anshuman Sinha. learn about a internal tool being developed and other things I had not experienced in Cognizant. Mostly cos there was a lot to learn in a short span of time. By evening we had to shift to a new place to stay in Chembur as the hotel had some confusion in bookings and so our accommodation had to be changed.
Day 4 was nearly the same except that it was gonna be followed by long weekend. The most important event of the day was that I somehow got to play for the department’s cricket team as a batsman.
Friday: got up late, met up Vipin and Satish ( my teammates in the cricket team), went to Matunga gymkhana at 4pm and played for 2 hours. End result: Body Pains
Saturday: got up at 7am to play cricket at 9am at Azad Maidan. Didn’t make it in the playing XI but encouraged my team. Team lost but w were happy with the effort. Went to my uncle’s place for lunch of fish and rice. AMAZING food leading to overeating and stomach ache. Time pass with Mayur by getting to know his friends and also a visit to Bandra Worli Sea Link and a chocolate milk shake at Bachelorr’s( not spelling mistake).
Sunday: I made it back to chembur and then again shifted to Airoli. Lunch at another aunt’s place followed by some house hunting too. Tiring day I must say.
Monday: made it office by 11, followed by some document reading and analysing a series of work flow for an internal tool development. dinner at 8 and room by 9pm.A gr8 day considering I got to know many more things about people I am working with
Tuesday: A day spent going through many tools and also the conf call for tool development turns out that I probably may be involved in the tool development as well as kind of managing it end to end, just the kind of work I was interested in. Overall a happy kinda day to finish up.
Have skipped out a lot of details but one I would not like to leave out is that my perceptions of Mumbai have changed significantly and maybe for the good I must say. My uncle and his family have been the most accommodating people I have known I must say.Ll fill in the details when i find some more time. Till next post
Nik

Business 2.0 : Re-envisioning Business for sustainability and development

The way business was conducted stayed unchanged for thousands of years, save for improvement in transportation enabling easier movement of good. The real revolution in the way Business was carried out came with the usage of ships to cart goods across the seas, with some of the traders ending up in India and ruling over it for nearly 4 centuries. From then on, speed at which business was carried out got faster and faster. Business transactions remained fragmented all throughout this time with non standardized, gold based currency system until there came a need for standardizing the way to conduct business. With the introduction of paper based currency and standardization, businesses became efficient and can be termed as Business 1.0.
With the advent of Internet and Virtual money, Businesses came to be transacted at the speed of light or nearly thereof, with large amount of money changing hands in an instant; with virtual money constituting nearly 90% of the global economy. Business 1.0 evolved into Business 2.0 during this time and not just the money but even goods became virtually available, anytime any place. Brick and Mortar gave way to Click and Order, someone even becoming Click and Mortar to make goods available both physically and virtually.
Somewhere, between 1.0 and 2.0, Mankind lost sight of the basic tenets of business and greed, overcame the best of men, to mint as much money as possible in the shortest span of time became the norm. As a result, we are already seeing repercussions in the form of global warming & related changes and financial meltdowns leaving no man, woman or child ,unaffected in its wake. However, as a society, we are rising above the norm and are taking some steps in the right direction. Finding our feet after having lost our way for so long is indeed difficult but we seem to have made progress. Dictatorships are being brought down, the greedy are being chastised and the poor are beginning to be taken cared of as seen the Arab Spring and the ‘Occupy Movement’ or the Anna Hazare revolution in India.
Businesses have begun to become more responsible and less greedy but Mother Nature is yet to be appeased as we continue to relentlessly attack her from all directions for our own greed. It is time that we took up the cause of Nature along with the cause of Mankind before it is too late for everyone. We should aim for development that is truly sustainable and ecologically sound. Sustainability is sometimes defined as managing the triple bottom line, that is, people, planet and profits by incorporating elements and factors towards making people relevant and businesses relevant. But sustainability should also incorporate resiliency over time. It is time, we build a business model wherein not just the manufacturers but everyone involved in the supply chain of suppliers to consumers become more Eco conscious.
As policies around the world become centered around community development and environment and not just economically, Businesses have to follow suit or in cases precede the government by becoming Eco friendly and pressurize the government into action. As awareness grows, so do opportunities and these are the opportunities that we must seize if we are to leave our world a better place than we found it.
Business 2.0 thus should be a proactive effort by businesses to stay ahead of the game by developing and redesigning new business models taking into account the various factors towards becoming sustainable and successful.

Convocation 2012

Convocation: 17-Mar-12

Its been a while since I really put in some time and effort for creating a post and one of the events that I really wanna go all out to describing is my Convocation at IMT cos its the first time I am ever going on stage to receive a degree.
The run up to the whole event is kind of a cross between boredom and extreme activity as my exams got over on 4th and I had practically nothing to do before 17th and hence instead of being beset with boredom, I went on a trip to Vaishno Devi which nearly got my health screwed up with the altitude sickness rendering me immobile for 3 4 days after the whole fiasco.
Anyways, the most awaited day,the 17th of March 2012 arrived and somehow I was unprepared for anything that followed. The day began quite late as what was to follow was a lot of frenzied activity. I went and collected the robe along with Nimesh around 10 30 am from the designated room and this followed by an insane amount of Bhasad “ Slang for useless banter. The ‘Nerd” gang comprising of me, Mukul, Nishant, Karan and Kaustuk all decided to reach the convocation hall by 3 15pm to avoid being thrown out and so by 2 30pm, I began getting ready followed by photo session with friends.
The ceremony began at 4 with an invocation to lord Ganesh followed by our director Bibek Banerjee reading out the annual report while also delving on the theme of Business 2.0, basically he was reading from the introduction I wrote for the newsletter. LOL. This was followed by a speech from Kamal Nath, President, IMT and Union Minister for Urban Development and a relatively short one by Mr Pranab Mukherjee. Both were so dreary and boring, they made the 40 mins between them feel like whole of eternity.
This was then followed by the most awaited segment of the whole event and that is being handed the degree. Names were called out indicating that we were to collect our degrees and we moved in a single file to go on stage and get them. When my turn came, I shook hands with the director and Kamal Nath but I had to reach out and grab the hands of Pranab Mukherjee. Back in place, we waited for a more mins before the ceremony ended and we threw our hats in the air. I threw mine up, the hat landed somewhere ahead but somebody else’s landed on me. By 8 30, we returned the robes followed by a decent dinner and some more photos.
Farewells, promises to meet again and stay in touch were mouthed more often than breathing I would say for that one hour post dinner. Mukul was the first one among my friends to leave right after dinner which is when I realized how much I had bonded with all my other friends and somehow probably I had assumed that everyone would be there all the time.
It was time for m to begin packing my stuff as well and so by 12 30, I had completed my packing. Siddharth Singh aka Boxer had booked the cab for 3 30am. The last 3 hours in college was spent catching up with juniors, or the neo seniors as I would say, some more bhasad and then a sweet simple sendoff. And on that day, my 21 month association with the college came to an end but my lifelong association with my friends continues

Farewell party at IMT

Revenge of the Colonists

This post is prompted by all the common mistakes in the usage of English Language I have seen by others and not committed by me as far as I know. I am amused, many a times, by not the comments but by the words that constitute the comment itself. LOL as a matter of fact is the expression I get when i see one such comment anywhere. Social media platforms like FB have exponentially increased our right / wrong usage of the words, thereby making us susceptible to inculcate wrong usage of words and terms in the most inappropriate of contexts.I understand practice makes perfect but I guess someone forgot to mention, “Perfect practice makes Perfect” because without practicing something that is perfect we become perfect in practicing something that is flawed and this causes many a consternation among the users as to the appropriateness of the usage.

I totally understand the fact that language is for communication and till such a time that the othr person knows what is being said / meant, we really shouldn’t have a problem but do we really have to go to such an extent that we abuse the language till it is nothing but a string of words in no particular order and worse, using wrong words. Makes one pull one’s hair out and kiss good bye to sanity. No seriously, we have been abusing the language so much.

All this reminds me of my High School teacher, GB ma’am, who was quite particular about the words that an answer for a question carrying 5 marks would be awarded with 4.5 if it carried even a single spelling mistake. A wrong word would be awarded 4 and with the kind of words being used nowadays, even getting a single mark would have been an achievement for most I believe.

Some of the worst mistakes have to be in the usages of than / then, shooted(there is no such word) / shot and the offenders simply carry on without having any cognizance of the effects of the usage. With many of my friends who are either embarking / embarked on a professional career soon or for some who are about to disembark from one, please mind your language so that you don’t end up in a mess over the usage of one.

I am also reminded of a PM whom I worked under in the organization I previously worked for, who could not spell the word “champagne” and instead used “champion” when he intended to mean that the team had done an excellent job and the effort was worth lauding and that entire project team had a celebration coming up.

As for the title, I once read an anecdote, or something thereof, about an Englishman commenting that they had decided to quit the country unable to bear the assaults on the English language and not bowing down to Gandhi’s plea.

Till next post
Nik

Scrivener

Scrivener software is a miracle for writers or writing enthusiasts masquerading as a writing software cos Miracle it is as it provides a one stop solution for writing needs. So why does this deserve to be called a Miracle, read on to find more about it.

I have primarily used MS Word to all the writing and WordPress.com to do all the blogging. But there have been instances where I have been left with a lot to desire primarily because of the focus of each of the tools. While Word focuses on enabling people to write reports, WordPress is primarily intended for giving a single space to blog undeterred. But both are short when it comes being able to provide space when you want to keep track of all the topics on which you are going to write about. Scrivener provides all these options and more at one go. To boot, Scrivener is free to try but with a catch, it should not go unused for 30 consecutive days failing which you have to buy a license; seem fair to try all the aspects of the software.

Scrivener provides various templates to choose from whether it is a Fiction, Non-Fiction, Script Writing or Misc purposes. It also provides suitable with suitable formats under each template. Each form of template carries with it an in built set of sub folders named aptly for each kind of template. The folders for a Fiction template are: Notes, Characters, Places and Header and Draft. Also provided is a space to store all your research in a separate but readily accessible space.

You can also import documents, into the writing space, of any format that you might have. You can also export document outside of the software into any format that you want; doc, docx, pdf or mobi (kindle). Thus saving the headache of having to use conversion softwares. It also helps you look Google and and Wikipedia without having to leave Scrivener.

One of the most commonest mistakes done by writers and non-writers alike is forgetting to save their work. This is readily taken care of by Scrivener as it saves any work that is left open and not made changes to, for 2 seconds. This ensures that your work up to 99.99% is saved without having to be instructed to. You can also back up your work to another location or to another device with 2 clicks. This saves headache and heartache for many. So why am I writing about Scrivener? Two reasons; Firstly I now use it for all my writing work, be it reports or the future intended use of story telling and Secondly, more importantly, I did write a blog post on another topic on WordPress site of about 300 words but before I was able to save the work, the browser crashed. When the browser restarted, my work had been flushed down the drain causing a mild heartburn. And now, to avoid repetition of the same in future, I have taken to write using Scrivener and hence this post to serve as a reminder of the wonderful software Scrivener is. May the legion of the like of the people at Literature and Latte ( the people behind this Miracle) grow by leaps and bounds to give this useful software deprived code filled Internet connected world of ours.

Till next post,

Nik

Short Story of a Short Story

Far back into the past as far as i can remember, I have been planning on writing something like a short story or a novel and so on. I have even attempted to contribute to the children’s magazine Champak and Chandamama, when I was a kid but never got past naming the characters and never really had a plot or anything to go ahead with in any case.

For as long as I can also remember, I have been a creative liar coming up with stories to evade studying for exams and homework; though I have been caught many a times by Mom and getting thrashed to within an inch of my life. I didn’t claim to have been successful, if you are smirking at the first statement I made. I was successful quite a few times I must claim at least in evading homework.

So drawing inspiration from a friend of mine who is pursuing a long forgotten dream, I intend to do the same if not surpass her by a long shot by pursuing one of mine which is writing. I might not even be close to writing a full length novel but a short story should be good enough to begin with. Till next updates

Nik

What is Business 2.0!!!

I am currently the chief editor of our college newsletter and we are currently working around a theme called “Business 2.0″, which was decided after a meeting with the chairperson so as to decide what we could come up with something relevant to the students and I am to write an featured article on the same.

So I am sitting at my desk, nearly smacking my head on the laptop for the last 48 hours trying to come up with an article worthy of putting it in and here’s my horror story.

The first thing as soon as i got back to my room was to do a Google search cos I have heard Business 2.0 as often as everybody else but what does it actually mean; I was as clued in as the next person or a little better if you consider Mukul with his MBBS background. So what does the Google search query throw up with 0.31 seconds : 1.65mn results with not a single noteworthy reference to peruse. Not wanting to tear my hair out, I took my next pick Blekko and it belched out nearly the same or a little better but still no luck as to the direction. If you have been wondering why on earth did i simply not visit Wikipedia, i suggest you take a look here . Now that your curiosity is slightly appeased at my misery on seeing the same, let me continue.

So I was basically left stranded in a vast ocean of data without as much as an oar to help me point in the right direction. I thought going on twitter and looking at tweets related to the same would help me a little and take a look for yourself what happened next.

Tweet #1: Web 2.0 : I actually kinda have heard about this but where the flying fish is Business 2.0 and if you are not referring to one stop using the hashtag.

Tweet #2 : App Economy. (Don’t you dare ask me what this is)

Tweet #3 : Women in Business 2.0 – The Movie. Apparently they are taking pre-orders but no word on what to expect in it.

Tweet #4 : Business 2.0. the new economy.  ( WHAT!!!!!! now what is new economy. Wikipedia link again. Strike 2 )

FB is not even on my consideration list of places to look for information as the only things i ever get to see is My vacation, my dog, my cat, my this and my that and nothing worthwhile ever and not to mention the Facebook IPO of $5 Billion..are people out of their frigging mind buying up FB IPO with 865mn people only making it earn $3.4 Bn in 12 frigging months.Ughhh. Disgusting.

Continuing where I left off from, Don’t worry I have not moved an inch as without an oar to row me somewhere, i am standing still and in the same place before i digressed. So what do i learn from this entire 48 hour exercise, Business 2.0 is a frigging myth that we use to console ourselves that the world is changing at a rapid pace and that there are people who know what it means while what it actually is, is what none really knows and everyone’s just bluffing their way around the world screaming their lungs out as to what it means. One such Business 2.0 guru / Social media consultant is listed below. Listen to him and his legion of Business 2.0  consultants at the risk of losing your sanity

Cheerio.

Nik