A highly satisfying 2009 for BridgeCo India

I can look back at 2009 with great satisfaction w.r.t things we achieved at BridgeCo (India), now about 15months old. The year was full of excitement, we ran as fast as we could and then some more and caught most of the things that were thrown at us. I'm happy to note that BridgeCo (India) has now become the operational headquarters with S/w engg, H/w engg, QA, PMO, Supply chain mgmt, IT, Finace, Accounting and Sales backend functions, fully operational.

The year started with us taking over complete project for a globally very well known brand in Consumer Electronics space. We had hurdles in setting-up of the office and were trying to support this customer with two USB internet sticks, as the office didn't had internet and telephone connections. We started taking more and more work as the infrastructure kept improving and the team kept on ramping-up. Today, we support our top-3 customers fully (all three are BIG names in the consumer electronics space).

Our technical team, led by our chief architect, came-up with a brilliant idea on our future software platform. This platform (3rd generation), gets the best of our earlier platforms and expected to serve our needs for the next couple of years. The idea was completely conceived and delivered (phase-1) out of our Bangalore office. The ASIC and H/w teams worked continuously to reduce the BoM costs of our modules. The non-engg teams (finance, admin, IT, SCM) ramped up fast and now supports all our customers and partners. The year ended with a last minute sprint to complete our demos for the upcoming CES at Las Vegas and completing the micro-level schedules for our #2 customer for their 2010 projects.

In the middle of all these we got ISO certified, recruited a bunch of talented folks and had a lot of fun. 2010 promises to be even more exciting as the global recession recedes and as we increase our customer base.

It was sometime, perhaps since 2005, that I had such a busy time at office!!

Wish you a great 2010.

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

What Matters Now

Seth Godin presents a (free) e-book titled "What Matters Now". It is a collection of brilliant short (1-page) essays by seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

I took a quick look. Usual suspects Tom Peters talks about 19 Es of Excellence, Guy Kawasaki (who else) talks about Evangelism, Micha sifry has a brilliant piece of "Nobody", Chip and Dan Heath (authors of the beautiful book "Made to Stick"), urges us to focus on "what IS working", Gina Trapani talks about "getting things done vs making things happen" and I can go on.

Please download and circulate around.

Thank you Seth!

RamP!

Will Google prevail against traditional news industry?

A fascinating fight is brewing between the emperor of the internet world, Google, and the mughals of (slowly dying, per some experts) traditional news industry.

It all started a few days ago, when Ruport Murdoch in an interview, told that they might decide to disallow search engines to index their news sites. He even went on to accuse Google, MSNs of the world that they were "stealing our stories". He is hinting towards pay-to-read kind of a model, though many people find that this business model may never take off.

Taking the cue, at the world news paper congress in Hyderabad, early this month, attacked Google and called it the digital vampire and kleptomaniac. The sudden bullishness seem to be coming in from change in the way the information is consumed - twitter for breaking news and facebook for reading content and watching video. There is some merit in the new found aggression from the traditional news industry. There are 350mn facebook users and 55mn users for Twitter and these two can be used as a counter against Google.

Google obviously is watching. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google striked back in a hard hitting article in Wall Street Journal (incidentally owned by Murdoch). He puts the ball back and said that with dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. He argued that Google is a great source of promotion, in that it sends 100,000 opportunities a minute to the news industry.

Where does it leave me and you? Time will tell and as of now I'm willing to bet that except for niche content (like Harward Business  Review for example), pure news continue to be "free". What do you think?

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Reading list for Dec-09

December!! Christmas holidays at work, more importantly our customers and bosses are also having holidays, so it appears there'd be "real" holidays. This is also the time to formally review the progress since my mid year retreat, do some introspection, read some thought provoking stuff and set goals for 2010, by religiously following a process that is working well for me for several years now.

I have lined-up a set of very interesting books and a couple of re-reads, taking confidence from the fact that I'm back to my habit of reading almost one book every week, thus completing the list of books I had for Nov'09.

Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life

Any manager/leader of some substance would have had heard/read Peter Drucker's wisdom. I'm no exception. I was intimidated at first when I read Drucker - he is so precise and prescriptive, and utterly relevant. You can't argue against much of what he has written. This book is a little different though. The author, Bruce Rosenstein, has synthesized all the works of Drucker and has come out with a guide that has Druker's profound core teachings related to personal and professional transformation. This work shows readers how to apply Drucker's recommendations to lead more fulfilling and meaningful lives. The book has lot of exercises for reflection and contemplation.

Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guide For Leading Change

A mentor of mine introduced me to Robert Quinn and his much celebrated book "Deep Change", which influenced me a great deal. Quinn's fundamental contribution is telling leaders how they can lead themselves. In this new book, Quinn shows how anyone can enter the fundamental state of leadership by engaging in the eight practices that center on the theme of ever-increasing integrity--reflective action, authentic engagement, appreciative inquiry, grounded vision, adaptive confidence, detached interdependence, responsible freedom, and tough love. After each chapter, Quinn challenges you to assess yourself with respect to each practice and to formulate a strategy for personal growth.

Both this book and the first one (Living in More Than one world) were hand carried by my friend from the US. Thanks M.P Srivathsa.

Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within

This is a re-read. I read this book about 8yrs ago and continue to get back to it every now and then. Quinn's new book "Building Bridges ..." that I just described above, is rooted and has lot of references to "Deep Change". I just thought of reading this book again this month.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Cialdini - the name itself invites an appreciative nod from people that are well versed in his works. This particular book, is arguably the best ever book written on the science of persuasion. I always thought influencing mostly an "art", Cialdini thinks its science and introduces you to six principles of persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency.  Each principle is backed by social scientific testing. The book is also filled with interesting examples that help you to apply these six principles.

Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization

Another re-read. I'm a big fan of Peter Senge and his concept of Learning Organization, so much that I'm a founder member of a not-for-profit "SoL South Foundation", which is affiliated to Senge's global SoL (Society for Organizational Learning). In this book, Senge presents an integrated corporate framework, which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning." Using ideas that originate in fields from science to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides a summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it's like to operate under this system. The book's concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever.

Nov-09: Best of blog posts

This feature had stopped as Aug-Oct was pretty crazy at work. Here's an attempt to restart. Here are a few interesting blog posts I came across in the last two months:

Seth Godin talks about 3 elements of full employment - Sales, Additive Effort and Initiation, which if practiced would always guarantee a job.

Zen Habits blog has a very interesting post that give valuable tips on How to Focus on What Truly Matters. Particularly the section on how to find time is the most practical way to go about doing things that truly matter.

Guy Kawasaki interviews Po Bronson (author of the New York Times #1 best-seller, What Should I Do with My Life?)  following the publication of his new book NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. You would love this interview if you are a parent (though Guy feels the same principles can be applied to employees too) Po Bronson warns about the extremes - over nurturing on one hand against being too strict. Here is his summary advice to parents:  

Be truthful with kids. While it isn’t necessary to be brutally honest, before I praise a kid, I ask myself if I really believe what I’m saying. If I do, then I think it’s probably right to say. It’s better for a kid to hear parents argue and resolve the quarrel, then it is to pretend the argument never occurred because the kids usually already know about the dispute. It’s the result they’re unsure of. A lot of communication by adults is intended to manipulate kids, and they’re usually on to us. And when we are constantly trying to outsmart kids, it may work in the moment, but ultimately it can hurt our credibility. Then kids don’t believe that they can turn to us when they need some honest advice. If we expect kids to be truthful with us, we should be truthful with them.

Innovation consultant Vinay Dabholkar details the methods that Edison used for his numerous innovations. After talking to Vinay on the subject several times, I've started to believe that "systematic innovation" may after all be possible.

On Tom Peters blog, Rajesh Setty has posted a set of 9 questions as a self-assessment to see whether are not you are caring enough. As is the usual case with Raj's posts this post too would make you think. For example, second question goes like this - "Do you care for them OR do you care about their opinion of you?". Equally interesting is the section on comments where Raj himself has participated in a lively debate.

BTW, Tom is launching new book The Little Big Things: 163 ways to achieve Exellence, expected to hit the market in early 2010. Follow Tom's blog for updates, previews and some videos.

Thats all I had for November. 

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

7 Lessons From a Marketing Genius

Courtesy 800-CEO-READ, I bumped into this article by Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. His article details seven points about what makes Mr. Jobs such an incredible marketer; words we can certainly all learn from. (Also see Vinay Dabholkar's related post Deconstructing the curiosity flow from Steve Job's iPod launch presentation)

Steve Jobs: 7 Lessons from a Marketing Genius
By Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest marketers in corporate history. For more than three decades, he has delivered legendary keynote presentations, raised product launches to an art form and successfully communicated the benefits of Apple products to millions of customers. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, advertising or public relations, Steve Jobs has something to teach you about telling your brand story.

Plan in analog. Steve Jobs may have made a name for himself in the digital world, but he prepares presentations in the old world of pen and paper. He brainstorms, sketches and draws on whiteboards. Before a new iPhone, iPod or MacBook is introduced, the Apple team decides on the exact messages (aka, benefits) to communicate. Those messages are consistent across all marketing platforms: presentations, Web sites, advertisements, press releases, and even the banners than are unfurled after Jobs’ keynote.

Create Twitter-friendly headlines. Can you describe your product or service in 140 characters? Steve Jobs offers a headline, or description, for every product. Each headline can easily fit in a Twitter post. For example, when he introduced the MacBook Air in January, 2008, he said that it is simply, “The world’s thinnest notebook.” You could visit the Apple Web site for more information, but if that’s all you knew, it would tell you a lot. If your product description cannot fit in a Twitter post, keep refining.

Introduce the antagonist. In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM, “Big Blue.” Before he introduced the famous 1984 ad to a group of Apple salespeople, he created a dramatic story around it. “IBM wants it all,” he said. Apple would be the only company to stand in its way. It was very dramatic and the crowd went nuts. Branding expert, Martin Lindstrom, has said that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero — you, your ideas and your product.

Stick to the rule of three. The human brain can only absorb three or four “chunks” of information at any one time. Neuroscientists are finding that if you give your listeners too many pieces of information to retain, they won’t remember a thing. It’s uncanny, but every Steve Jobs presentation is divided into three parts. On September 9, 2009, when Jobs returned to the world stage after a medical leave of absence, he told the audience that he had three things to discuss: iPhone, iTunes and iPods. Jobs even has fun with the rule of three. In January, 2007, he told the audience he had “three revolutionary” products to introduce — an iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. After repeating the list several times he said, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. They are one device and we are calling it iPhone!”

Strive for simplicity. Apple chief design architect, Jonathan Ive, said Apple’s products are easy to use because of the elimination of clutter. The same philosophy applies to Apple’s marketing and sales material. For example, there are forty words on the average PowerPoint slide. It’s difficult to find ten words in one dozen Apple slides. Most of Steve Jobs’ slides are visuals — photographs or images. When are there words, they are astonishingly sparse. For example, in January, 2008, Jobs was delivering his Macworld keynote and began the presentation by thanking his customers for making 2007 a successful year for Apple. The slide behind Jobs simply read “Thank you.” Steve Jobs tells the Apple story. The slides compliment the story.

Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment. People will forget what you said, what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There’s always one moment in a Steve Jobs presentation that is the water cooler moment, the one part of the presentation that everyone will be talking about. These show stoppers are completely scripted ahead of time. For example, when Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, what do people remember? They recall that he removed the computer from an inter-office envelope. It’s the one moment from Macworld 2008 that everyone who watched it — and those who read about — seem to recall. The image of a computer sliding in an envelope was immediately unveiled in Apple ads and on the Apple website. The water cooler moment had run according to plan.

Sell dreams, not products. Great leaders cultivate a sense of mission among their employees and customers. Steve Jobs’ mission is to change the world, to put a “dent in the universe.” According to Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” True evangelists are driven by a messianic zeal to create new experiences. When he launched the iPod in 2001, Jobs said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.” Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs sees it as tool to enrich people’s lives. It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.


Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Deadlines

After talking about "Stop the Excuses!", its only natural to talk about deadlines. I recently read an interesting post by Alyssa Royse (founder and CEO of Just Cause) on three type of deadlines. As someone who is under constant pressure to meet the deadlines set by bosses and customers and who in turn putting pressure on the team to meet those, this article stuck a chord. Here is the summary:

There are three type of deadlines:

1. Real deadlines: These are created externally and usually by market conditions. For example, right now I'm busy preparing for the largest consumer electronics show - CES 2010, to be held in Las Vegas in early January. This is really real, if you will. You miss it, then there is a serious repurcussion on the business, perhaps near death. You just can't ignore such deadlines.

2. Fuzzy deadlines: Realish, but not life and death. These are typically set by customers and other stakeholders. Your customer would have liked you to deliver something by such and such a date, the plan is there and you hit the road. Somewhere along you realize that unless you throw in additional resources and/or burn midnight oil, you can't make it, though you can comfortably deliver a quality stuff by shifting it. Chances are that the customer might understand and agree to shift, if there is credibility. Try shifting such deadlines.

3. Arbitrary deadlines: These are things most of us trying to grapple with all the time. You decided in advance a particular date for something, but with no real reason. As you approach the deadline you suddenly notice that so many things are still pending and you are not feeling well, boss (who else) has put additional work, your high school friend suddenly is in the city, ... blah.. blah. Sounds familiar? Learn to ignore such deadlines.

Interesting isn't it? You can see the complete post here.

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com