Read the blog post in full for the complete context. Always a good reminder.This taught me several valuable lessons
1. Baseball metaphors don’t travel well.
2. Usability and look & feel aren’t the same thing.
3. Local functionality matters. Řešení SAP ERP HCM je navrženo pro globální podnikání, podporuje funkce pro výplatu mezd, regulační požadavky a obsahuje nejlepší zkušenosti z praxe pro více než 47 zemí.
4. Translators,Translators, Translators.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Good reminder of fundamentals
Great anecdotal post from a product management blog on my blogroll.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Good product design is almost always a good investment
I was reminded of this truth today. My wife is a forgiving woman full of grace :-) who forgives me for not being enthusiastic with the vacuum cleaner. This might be changing!
We recently bought a Kone ->
and I seem to find myself wanting to use it more often. We also have a Dyson for more regular vacuuming. I very much doubt that the Kone is better technically than the Dyson but I do think they got a lot of the usability and product design 'right' with the Kone.
So what do you have? You have a customer who seems to enjoy using the product and his wife will hopefully think he is a good man for doing so.
We recently bought a Kone ->
and I seem to find myself wanting to use it more often. We also have a Dyson for more regular vacuuming. I very much doubt that the Kone is better technically than the Dyson but I do think they got a lot of the usability and product design 'right' with the Kone.So what do you have? You have a customer who seems to enjoy using the product and his wife will hopefully think he is a good man for doing so.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Way to go Austin!
According to this Wired report -
Austin, Texas has the highest percentage of residents who read or write blogs
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Good people of Austin Energy
We lost power this morning, around 4:30am. It was starting to look bad outside, the storm clouds were heading towards Austin. Kim called the power company couple minutes after we lost it. It turns out that the power lines run through a rather large bush (i thought it was a tree till today) and the primary and the secondary power lines ended up making contact in the bush thus shorting out.
The fine folks at Austin Energy showed up 5:30 (in spite of the weather) and had the problem resolved by 7:45. Well done gentlemen and thank you for working through the rain.
The fine folks at Austin Energy showed up 5:30 (in spite of the weather) and had the problem resolved by 7:45. Well done gentlemen and thank you for working through the rain.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
It is cool to geek once in a while
Technology review did a very good 2 part article (links below) on the latest generation of math whizes (what do you call a collection of math wizards?). These men and women play a very interesting and vital role in our economy and have a direct hand in the sub-prime mortgage market collapse that occurred recently.
If you want to understand what CDO and Derivatives have to do with modern economics this is a good place to start.
If you want to understand what CDO and Derivatives have to do with modern economics this is a good place to start.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
It does not take a MBA to do this...
- It is not easy
- Nor is it always possible
- But it is worth striving for.
- It does not need a good ROI
- It always makes good business sense!
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Requirements and Refactoring
This is a dog story. Well the protagonists are dogs but this story is not about dogs, it is about requirements management.
Requirements management is one of those phrases that puts majority of the people in the software industry (well people in general) to sleep. It needn't and in fact it is VITAL.
Assume you are a young strapping gunslinger in the 1870's who just graduated from gunslinging school. You are excited and ready for some action, you are hoping to ride shotgun on the coach transporting the gold from one town to another. You are hoping to draw fast, fire true and make your name known. Instead you are told to spend time with the boring people who maintain the books, you are told to go talk to the bank president and understanding his concerns and his goals...blah..blah..blah.. at some point you stop listening and you fall asleep. After all, you came out of gunslinging school not good listening school.
Finally, you leave town with the coach carrying the gold. Oh No! it is Ben Wade !! You decide it is time to put your education to work. Wade's gang hits the back of the coach first and retrieves lot of the gold and loses interest in your crew.... but you decide you will kill as many of them as you can and make your president proud. There is a fierce firefight and for a while you take down two of them for every one of you who goes down. Eventually the shooting ends and you and the rest of the survivors drag yourself into town. You are expecting praise for your courage and determination - instead your president chews you out and he is MAD!!! what happened...?
Well it turns out, he did not care as much about the gold as he did about the chief accountant who was traveling with you. He wants to expand his franchise and he was planning on using his chief accountant to train a whole cadre of bankers. Since you decided to stay and fight back, the chief accountant is now dead and that is exactly what the president did not want.
Could you have avoided this? Oh yes this is what the old man was talking about when you were told to listen earlier..... costly lesson eh.
Wait didn't i say this was a dog story. Hrmm... well then, here is a less dramatic example: my wife and I got two puppies recently. Bella and Zooey are five months old and came straight from the breeder to our house. So as we went through the usual new puppy process we realized that we had three tags for each of them with their names and our phone numbers plus an additional number. How did this happen?
- my wife ordered custom tags for them with their names and my number
- the vet we took them to for their rabies shots saw they had no tags on them and made them tags with their shot info and the vets number on it. Of course it had their names also.
- I registered them with AKC and akc sold me on a recovery plan for them for the cheap one time price of 12$. This meant now they have a tag with their names, a unique AKC id and a 1-800 akc number to call.
This is mainly a communication issue but also a requirements issue. And you thought this was a boring subject ;-)
Note:
1. I saw two westerns recently, 3:10 to yuma and "annie get your gun". Ben wade is so the man!
2. I am aware that gunslingers are predominately men but that does not mean that requirements management is a male problem.
Requirements management is one of those phrases that puts majority of the people in the software industry (well people in general) to sleep. It needn't and in fact it is VITAL.
Assume you are a young strapping gunslinger in the 1870's who just graduated from gunslinging school. You are excited and ready for some action, you are hoping to ride shotgun on the coach transporting the gold from one town to another. You are hoping to draw fast, fire true and make your name known. Instead you are told to spend time with the boring people who maintain the books, you are told to go talk to the bank president and understanding his concerns and his goals...blah..blah..blah.. at some point you stop listening and you fall asleep. After all, you came out of gunslinging school not good listening school.
Finally, you leave town with the coach carrying the gold. Oh No! it is Ben Wade !! You decide it is time to put your education to work. Wade's gang hits the back of the coach first and retrieves lot of the gold and loses interest in your crew.... but you decide you will kill as many of them as you can and make your president proud. There is a fierce firefight and for a while you take down two of them for every one of you who goes down. Eventually the shooting ends and you and the rest of the survivors drag yourself into town. You are expecting praise for your courage and determination - instead your president chews you out and he is MAD!!! what happened...?
Well it turns out, he did not care as much about the gold as he did about the chief accountant who was traveling with you. He wants to expand his franchise and he was planning on using his chief accountant to train a whole cadre of bankers. Since you decided to stay and fight back, the chief accountant is now dead and that is exactly what the president did not want.
Could you have avoided this? Oh yes this is what the old man was talking about when you were told to listen earlier..... costly lesson eh.
Wait didn't i say this was a dog story. Hrmm... well then, here is a less dramatic example: my wife and I got two puppies recently. Bella and Zooey are five months old and came straight from the breeder to our house. So as we went through the usual new puppy process we realized that we had three tags for each of them with their names and our phone numbers plus an additional number. How did this happen?
- my wife ordered custom tags for them with their names and my number
- the vet we took them to for their rabies shots saw they had no tags on them and made them tags with their shot info and the vets number on it. Of course it had their names also.
- I registered them with AKC and akc sold me on a recovery plan for them for the cheap one time price of 12$. This meant now they have a tag with their names, a unique AKC id and a 1-800 akc number to call.
This is mainly a communication issue but also a requirements issue. And you thought this was a boring subject ;-)
Note:
1. I saw two westerns recently, 3:10 to yuma and "annie get your gun". Ben wade is so the man!
2. I am aware that gunslingers are predominately men but that does not mean that requirements management is a male problem.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Watch what you say....
I came across this article on tampabay.com as part of work related research.
Jesus' maker, David Socha, said he created the biblical toys to give girls an alternative to dolls in G-strings and boys a source of amusement not modeled on "demons" and "spawns of Satan.""The Bible's full of violence, but I don't think violence is glorified in the Bible," said Socha, CEO of California-based One2Believe. "When I was growing up, I was always GI Joe. I was never the bad guy. Now, I think some kids are playing the bad guy. We're trying to bring wholesomeness back."
I am sure his intentions are really good but I am not sure the best way to position it is through stereotypes. Girls like dolls in G-string whereas boys like "spawns of satan".... heh! man wish the boys and girl in Austin were that simple to understand ;-)
I am actually very much for him offering more choice to kids. I just unfortunately get the stench of piety and close-mindedness from that tag line (talk about not stereotyping people *grin*)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Nebraska state lawmaker is suing God
Detail Link
HT to mojoblog
Chambers lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.
The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of alias, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is omnipresent.
In the lawsuit, Chambers said he's tried to contact God numerous times...
[The lawsuit] says God has caused "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."
The suit also says God has caused "calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction."
Chambers also says God "has manifested neither compassion nor remorse, proclaiming that defendant will laugh" when calamity comes.
HT to mojoblog
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Passions flying high
I came across this article buried within rediff. It is about an ongoing case where the Government of India is trying to construct over what most hindus believe to be a divine landmark. The comments were interesting to me. They were insanely passionate and rambling of course but they were also revealing a lot of the assumed prejudices.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Relationships
Some recent events got me thinking about relationships. Most of the current world is trying to mimic the American school of success.
For most part success here still translates to tremendous financial security, freedom to accommodate impulse behavior (travel, trinkets, entertainment, house, cars, .... you know the list) and the ability to get to a point in life where most of the rules that apply to the common man are not applicable to you. ("common man" is my pc version of the "average man") While there is an active movement trying to redefine "success"(Saturn commercial). The popular version still trends towards enabling a life style of excess and immediate gratification"
One of the unspoken consequences of this has been the demotion of relationships in the priority list of a working adult. Relationships are assumed to be "easy". If they cannot be sustained just on the time left after pursuing life's other goals, then there is something wrong with the other person in the relationship. Please realize that I am close to and continue to meet a lot of individuals who do get it "right" (IMHO) but they are counter-cultural. They did not get there without intentional hard work and sacrifices. They have to do a thorough review and refactoring of their convictions before they can be counter cultural. This is hard work and takes sacrifice, both of which are not attitudes we want to associate with relationships.
People assume one has to be unselfish and put the other persons needs ahead of yours to make relationships work. Guess what-- YOU DO! but the mistake is in thinking that you have to be born unselfish. Errr sorry mate :-). NOBODY is born unselfish. You become unselfish in your character by continually working on your relationships. It is a constant side effect and not a necessary starting ingredient.
Interestingly from a cost-benefit analysis, nothing repays your hard word like a strong, healthy and loving relationship. (Incidentally there are no guarantees but that is where your personal "faith" comes in) I am confident of this assertion because like successful platform plays (M$, _maybe facebook_, the internet). Relationship is a platform strategy for the rest of your life. Your success or failure in your distinct life endeavors say job, raising kids or changing the society is highly tied to the strength of your relationships.
What got me thinking about all this are the events of this week.
Good luck with your relationships :-) Let me know if you want to bounce thoughts with me.
For most part success here still translates to tremendous financial security, freedom to accommodate impulse behavior (travel, trinkets, entertainment, house, cars, .... you know the list) and the ability to get to a point in life where most of the rules that apply to the common man are not applicable to you. ("common man" is my pc version of the "average man") While there is an active movement trying to redefine "success"(Saturn commercial). The popular version still trends towards enabling a life style of excess and immediate gratification"
One of the unspoken consequences of this has been the demotion of relationships in the priority list of a working adult. Relationships are assumed to be "easy". If they cannot be sustained just on the time left after pursuing life's other goals, then there is something wrong with the other person in the relationship. Please realize that I am close to and continue to meet a lot of individuals who do get it "right" (IMHO) but they are counter-cultural. They did not get there without intentional hard work and sacrifices. They have to do a thorough review and refactoring of their convictions before they can be counter cultural. This is hard work and takes sacrifice, both of which are not attitudes we want to associate with relationships.
People assume one has to be unselfish and put the other persons needs ahead of yours to make relationships work. Guess what-- YOU DO! but the mistake is in thinking that you have to be born unselfish. Errr sorry mate :-). NOBODY is born unselfish. You become unselfish in your character by continually working on your relationships. It is a constant side effect and not a necessary starting ingredient.
Interestingly from a cost-benefit analysis, nothing repays your hard word like a strong, healthy and loving relationship. (Incidentally there are no guarantees but that is where your personal "faith" comes in) I am confident of this assertion because like successful platform plays (M$, _maybe facebook_, the internet). Relationship is a platform strategy for the rest of your life. Your success or failure in your distinct life endeavors say job, raising kids or changing the society is highly tied to the strength of your relationships.
What got me thinking about all this are the events of this week.
- My wife is currently in Poland on a work related trip. This is hard for me. I do not like not having her in my house, city, state, country and time zone :-) (have i made my point clear). But we both realize that travel is a part of our adult responsibilities and it is essential that we support each other. What is cool to me from this trip is that we unconsciously switched to frequent emails and sms 's in addition to phone calls. This has had a really good effect on me (i hope for her too). Being able to stay in touch albeit with rapid messages has helped me continue to keep her in my thoughts without a break. I am still very much excited about her coming back this weekend but I am handling the separation a lot better in addition to feeling loved by her and loving her even though we are seven hours apart.
- My grandma passed away yesterday. She was 85. She had a hard life and we are glad the end was quick and peaceful. She was a surrogate mom to me during the first 15 or so years of my life (my mom busted her butt working for us along with my dad - thanks mom and dad). I miss my grandma but probably too personal for me to blog about. What is interesting to me though is that i started to keep my dad in the loop on my life via my blog over the past 6-8 months. This again has helped me tell him and my mom that they are in my thoughts and let them know how much i love them. The net effect is that when my grandma passed away, I was able to have a healthy and good conversation with my dad (she was his mom). We live 12hrs apart and I moved away from my home/country over a decade ago. So getting to this point is not a coincidence. It took hard work and sacrifice.
Good luck with your relationships :-) Let me know if you want to bounce thoughts with me.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Interesting Jobs
He says he was afraid of only three things in life "electricity, heights....." You got to see this video :-) -> link
Thursday, August 30, 2007
More presentation goodness
This time from Seth Godin. His article is on how to put in a little more thought into your power point creation but get a lot of reward in return. Give it a read, well written with concrete examples as well.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
How much effort do you put into your presentations
In the enterprise software context/world we don't have a presentation guru. Presentations are considered as part of the job responsibility of most of the normal functional roles. It is more common to see presentations be a part of the day to day job for functional managers (program, product, project) and for sales and marketing folks than for developers and other engineers.
Most presentations follow a common company template or stay simple. This is not a bad thing but if the goal is to influence people through the presentation that the medium and the tools being used might be as important if not more as the content being presented.
Data Visualizations: Modern Approaches is an aggregation of different presentation techniques. Specifically addressing the problem of data visualization. Good link to have in your book marks list.
(HT to Guy Kawasaki )
Links:
Data Visualizations: Modern Approaches
presentation zen.
Most presentations follow a common company template or stay simple. This is not a bad thing but if the goal is to influence people through the presentation that the medium and the tools being used might be as important if not more as the content being presented.
Data Visualizations: Modern Approaches is an aggregation of different presentation techniques. Specifically addressing the problem of data visualization. Good link to have in your book marks list.
(HT to Guy Kawasaki )
Links:
Data Visualizations: Modern Approaches
presentation zen.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Remind me not to teach my (future) kids driving
I accidentally drove one of our cars into the other this morning. I had a not so small dog in the back of the suv and so could not see out of my rear view mirror. I proceeded to back out and ran straight into our other car. Looks like we have to replace the hood :-/ $$$....
Yeah, good thing my wife is kind, loving and did not marry me for my attention to detail or driving skills.
Yeah, good thing my wife is kind, loving and did not marry me for my attention to detail or driving skills.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Stardust
It was a fulfilling movie going experience for me. I am an "all the way" Neil Gaiman fan, so this was a beautiful gift from my wife to me (Thanks Kim). I enjoyed the show 100%.. I loved the richness of the story with its ability to surprise me with magic. As in, it is pretty obvious that you are watching a world where magic is in the open but it still manages to get you when you see magic occur.
There is something beautiful and special when a story is essentially a coming-of-age story and a love story between a prince (from a magical world) and a fallen star but you never stop to think - how exactly does the "love" i know of translate to something shared between a prince and a fallen star. Instead you just accept it, get caught up in it and find yourself rooting.
:-) Then again maybe I am uniquely qualified to enjoy movies like this completely. I can easily suspend disbelief and be completely lost in a rich land provided the story stays seamless as it keeps stretching reality. This one did that for me.
Highly recommend it but YMMV. Btw, to be 100% honest, my wife mentioned that she felt like it dragged a bit in the middle. The run time is ~2hrs.. it felt like 45 mins to me :-)
There is something beautiful and special when a story is essentially a coming-of-age story and a love story between a prince (from a magical world) and a fallen star but you never stop to think - how exactly does the "love" i know of translate to something shared between a prince and a fallen star. Instead you just accept it, get caught up in it and find yourself rooting.
:-) Then again maybe I am uniquely qualified to enjoy movies like this completely. I can easily suspend disbelief and be completely lost in a rich land provided the story stays seamless as it keeps stretching reality. This one did that for me.
Highly recommend it but YMMV. Btw, to be 100% honest, my wife mentioned that she felt like it dragged a bit in the middle. The run time is ~2hrs.. it felt like 45 mins to me :-)
Small World
I was in LAX on Thursday on my way to Austin. My standard ritual during my return trips is to consume my elixir of choice at the starbucks in the terminal.
The girl who took my credit card looks up at me and says "Are you from India?" I nod with a smile (it is pretty obvious if you look at me) She then asked "which state are you from?" This caught me off guard since most people are not familiar with the states in India. I said I am from South India. She continued confidently, "TamilNadu?".. I was bemused and did the nod again. "Vanakam" ... I did a double take but I had heard her right, she repeats it "vanakkam".
Vanakkam is the word for 'welcome' in Tamil, my mother tongue. She answered my unasked question with, "Yeah I took Tamil in college". Did you go to school here I asked (referring to USC/UCLA etc). No no... of course not. I am from Poland she said. It turns out that Tamil is offered as a foreign language in Poland.
It is a small world indeed. Coincidentally my wife is going to Poland in a few weeks.. maybe she will be able to practice her meager but growing Tamil vocabulary there ;-)
The girl who took my credit card looks up at me and says "Are you from India?" I nod with a smile (it is pretty obvious if you look at me) She then asked "which state are you from?" This caught me off guard since most people are not familiar with the states in India. I said I am from South India. She continued confidently, "TamilNadu?".. I was bemused and did the nod again. "Vanakam" ... I did a double take but I had heard her right, she repeats it "vanakkam".
Vanakkam is the word for 'welcome' in Tamil, my mother tongue. She answered my unasked question with, "Yeah I took Tamil in college". Did you go to school here I asked (referring to USC/UCLA etc). No no... of course not. I am from Poland she said. It turns out that Tamil is offered as a foreign language in Poland.
It is a small world indeed. Coincidentally my wife is going to Poland in a few weeks.. maybe she will be able to practice her meager but growing Tamil vocabulary there ;-)
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