The Shifting Goalpost

There are more business books published every year than the number of cricket matches that India plays each season. And you will have to sift through a number of resources to create your reading list so that you don’t end up wasting your valuable time and energy going through a book you rather have not read. But this review is about a book which was written 16 years ago. Take it from me that if you are going to read one book this month, make it ‘The Pursuit of WOW!’ by Tom Peters.

This book falls under the ‘unputdownable’ category. It was a chance break while attending a training when I loitered in the library at work and picked up this book. And I was as excited as winning a lottery. Such are the gems of wisdom this book has to offer.

Generally, the business books that I have come across are either in the form of Management textbooks (some hoping to become a part of the MBA curriculum or at least to appear on the suggested reading list) or the parable variety (which have become very popular since ‘Who moved my Cheese’ – check your Sunday newspapers’ Top 10 Non-Fiction Bestsellers List). Of course, parables have been popular due to the easy reading and this book takes it further. The author has risked the format of non-format. He has used free-form content for the topics that he covers. It is a pleasant surprise how the blog form can be applied to a printed book and still be readable in continuity and bookmark-able. You will understand this if you have ever tried to read various personal blog entries published at various dates in one go. But it brings the good part of the blog form too – i.e. pick any section and start reading from there.

As the title of the book suggests this is about achieving excellence in what an individual or organisation does. The book is liberally strewn with examples of strategies going right as well as wrong. It unabashedly judges, advises and suggests how individuals and organisations ought to work to survive, grow and make an impact. The author does not mince words to show his disapproval about the bureaucracy that is a standard feature of large organisations, successful or not. The book tells the reader about how the right or wrong selection of tools and processes can make a positive or negative impact to the employees, customers and other stakeholders of an organisation. It also talks about the design aspect of various entities – the insights are applicable to everything from deliveries to restrooms. Yes, you read it right – restrooms. It talks in detail and in same breath about how a very small company is achieving customer delight in a job considered to be the most routine one (plumbing) and how Hatim Tyabji brought changes at Verifone and grew it 12 times in 9 years. There are three transcripts about a group of Executives discussing business challenges, diversity and entrepreneurship. These provide a lot of food for thought in the areas mentioned above and succeeds in increasing awareness as well as kindles a fire in the reader such that he will want to do something about it now.

As mentioned earlier, the book was written in 1994, so there are areas which could either seem to be dated or considered as the author’s foresight e.g. the usage of rolodex or email.

For some, the casual form of the book could be a deterrent – especially for those who chew on the textbook material day in and day out, it could also seem superficial. The book will also not give the reader strategy templates, toolsets or specific guidelines about achieving a specific goal.
The most important intention of the book is to provoke, as Tom Peters calls himself a provocateur, and it does a good job at that.

Happy day today - effortlessly captured a macro shot of my son’s favourite toy - his racing car.

Don’t know when the iPhone 4 will be launched in India. And by that time, Apple will be gearing up for the iPhone 5 in US. Had a quick glance at a Samsung that a colleague at work was using and was not at all impressed. Unwilling to pay any big bucks for Blackberry or one of the very few Android phones available in India, I went and picked up the Micromax Q5fb - desperately wanted a QWERTY phone to update Facebook and Twitter on the move.

And I am impressed - the feeling is exactly similar to the one when I used to have a Linux desktop as my primary machine at home till I moved to an Apple eMac 6 years back. Then it was Linux till I afford a Mac. And now it is Micromax till I afford an iPhone.

After just 3 days, I could not resist but to try hacking the phone. And last 3 days, it was about understanding how can a such a phone be sold so cheaply.

And this is what I found - Micromax Q5fb is assembled from a chipset MT6235 from a Taiwanese company Mediatek which loads it with a customised operating system Nucleus RTOS from US company Mentor Graphics. Then in India, Micromax uses a game changing business strategy - low inventory, double margins for dealers compared to the mainstream players and now an increasing big budget sponsorship of events such as cricket and bollywood, that are second only to food and water in India.

It is amazing to see this evolving business model and how it has made the well established global leaders in mobile phones being relegated to also rans.

No wonder, Apple doesn’t consider the Indian market - it is a different ball game here and maybe they are the only one from the big mobile players who understand this.

Lie is a graphic novel in the form of miniature paintings with an intent to provide a satire on politics, religion, film, cricket and family and how they contribute to the corruption, greed, caste prejudice, materialism, communalism and gender inequalities. The two lists in the preceding sentence are from the narration at the back of the book. Well, if one had to cover all of these in a 180-page book, it cannot do justice to all the points. And indeed that is the case.

As opposed to the original intent, the book is more focused on political characters and ignores many of the other areas. And obviously then, it deals more with corruption and greed.

Somehow, I felt a case of missed opportunity here. The author may have had some unavoidable format constraint (180 pages) and hence tried to tell as much as possible within this constraint. But in doing so he has definitely compromised on the complete message that he had in his mind. A free hand on the length could have led to a magical tome of a graphic novel (maybe similar to Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’). In the current form, it leaves you wanting more. Somehow I don’t think that (to leave you wanting more) was an intention, but I maybe wrong.

The author has selected two political characters Bhola Mishra and Rekha who are much more than loosely based on Lalu Prasad and Indira Gandhi. Not sure why their supporters have not targeted this book to demand a ban. Of course, not a single supporter has read it or even read it in the future. You have got the idea so it becomes very predictable as well from here.

I am interested in knowing how well this book does as it could provide an indication of whether the comic book generation (I just made that up) which has grown up now will lap up mature content in graphic form (wow, the last phrase will bring up anything but mature ideas in a dirty mind - I am sure you are not one of those).

Last few points - the drawings are an interesting style (cannot work mainstream except for shock treatment like South Park but it will take at least 100-200 years more for that to be acceptable in India). The style works very well for the content. And once you start reading Lie, it is very difficult to put it down till you reach the end. We want more.

I am taking liberty to post one page from the book. Enjoy.

It has been 4-5 months now that I have been driving in Mumbai. And I don’t think there is anything as crazy as that. Apart from facing 2 year olds or a bulldozer suddenly popping in front of the car, it is fraught with unavoidable risks. It is easy to blame auto-rickshaws, trucks and motorcycles but in general, very few comprehend the risks that they take. Because if they did, the situation would not have been so crazy.

I love driving. But my faith is shaken and I am worried on how long I will hold that.

The other evening I was playing with my son in the garden and overheard a discussion between three elderly gentlemen. One made a comment “We have selected the democratic system for governance, but people have a feudal mindset. It will take some more time for the mindset to change.” Looking at a lot of things that happen around us from that perspective will explain at least a few of them.

I was able to change this

to this

by using a simple kitchen foil as following -

I was inspired by 802.11b Homebrew WiFi Antenna Shootout, which I stumbled upon while trying to find a solution to the wi-fi signal dropping when surfing the internet from a room other than the one where the router is placed.

I am so much disappointed not to have seen Sachin’s inning today as it unfolded. Would love to reiterate what I had written after he surpassed Lara’s record. The Genius.

After 20 years, he gives an interview through email and answers 6 questions. What a recluse?!

Slashdot discussion and
The interview on Cleveland.com

Calvin and Hobbes - one of my favourite comics characters.

If you find the following funny, then you should buy The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

—
Calvin: “Dad, are you vicariously living through me in the hope that my accomplishments will validate your mediocre life and in some way compensate for all of the opportunities you botched?”
Father: “If I were, you can bet I’d be re-evaluating my strategy.”
Calvin, later to his mother: “Mom, Dad keeps insulting me.”
—
This one’s tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen …
—
Ms. Wormwood: Calvin! Pay attention! We’re studying GEOGRAPHY! Now what state do you live in?
Calvin: Denial.
Ms. Wormwood: [sighs] Well, I don’t suppose I can argue with that…
—

I came across this Wired article Ubiquity Alternatives Offer Power Users Command-Line Tools for the Web. The bookmarklet Quix is a wonderful tool - command line for the browser - it is similar to Quicksilver for Mac. I have dragged the bookmarklet to Safari’s Bookmarks Bar in the first position and hence I can invoke Quix command line by just pressing ⌘-1. There are loads of useful commands - I liked the ‘tt’ command which is useful for tweeting the current URL through Tweetie.

Finally, the shipment from UK arrived in Mumbai after 10 weeks and glad to have most of the things in one piece. I had to visit the customs office at the Mumbai Docks to get a clearance and pay for any duties. And I have to say the customs officers have been very co-operative, very helpful and very courteous. There was no underhand dealings or demands. Apart from the initial wait (and that was a long one), I was very delighted. In fact, the agents were the ones who were problematic.

I was excited like a kid finding a new toy when I read an article about the upcoming graphic novels based on Ratnakar Matkari’s Marathi stories (the comics are in English) in today’s Loksatta. Now, I consider Ratnakar Matkari as the Marathi Stephen King. And being an ardent fan of S.King and Graphic Novels, I am not able to contain my excitement.

Is this the beginning of getting something similar to 100 Bullets, V for Vendetta, Sin City and Sandman from India? Wow.

Please visit The Feast and other visions of malevolence to get a glimpse of these comics. Ashish Padlekar and Saumin Patel are the people behind this. Congratulations and Best of Luck to them!

Here are some rough notes about my experiences in Mumbai so far…

Mobile connection
Airtel - Initially, I went to Airtel Chembur office for getting a mobile connection as I also wanted to check out an iPhone (I was under the impression that Airtel was the exclusive supplier in India). We had a major trouble finding it since it had just opened and nobody knew where it was. And the Airtel hoardings all over were making the search more complicated. Anyway, eventually found it but the staff were totally clueless about the iPhone’s availability, price, and the data plan (they said it was just Rs.200 per month - I am still not sure whether that is the case). Unimpressed, I decided to seek other options.

Vodafone - My friend, who is a long term Vodafone customer, took me to their office in Chembur. I wanted to get two SIM cards - for me and my wife. The staff was courteous and after asking a few questions about the expected usage (voice and data) explained me the various post-paid options and sold me two connections - smooth ride. They told me that it will take not more than 48 hours for the SIM cards to get activated. What they did not tell me was it was 48 hours after I give them the address proof - house agreement copy. Now my friend who is a very diligent person actually had carried my house agreement copy in the car (she was taking care of all affairs related to my house while I was overseas). So I gave the staff the copy for photocopying and he took the necessary papers. I had to sign all the photocopies - self-attestation - fantastic ritual as compared to the earlier days of finding a Special Executive Magistrate for attesting your photocopies. Vodafone staff was also appeared uninterested in my iPhone query.

Now, I was patiently waiting for my mobile connection to start - switching the phone on and off now and again with no luck. The stipulated 48 hours passed and still no result. I tried the Vodafone customer care 111 a number of times and every time they said, the connection will start after 4 hours. Finally, I went to their office and it seems the staff already knew what was wrong - they had failed to take a copy of a certain page from the documents I provided. But did not bother to contact me to tell that. And when asked that I had called 111 a number of times but they did not tell me that this was an issue, the response was they don’t have this record with them. So all the time when they said the problem will be solved after 4 hours, it was a total bluff.

The ordeal doesn’t end here. After making sure that all the documents were with them and getting another assurance that the phone will be activated within 48 hours(!), I started for my journey to go out of Mumbai for 5 days. I knew I was carrying the risk of the connection not activating and it did materialise but the most surprising aspect was that out of my two connections, the one for my wife started within a day and the other one did not start for the next 5 days (but wife’s phone was disconnected twice after that for address verification and started after a call to 111) - both connections bought at the same time, same documents submitted and still this unexplainable phenomenon.

Also, I am getting strange phone calls for verification of address with somebody asking for date of birth, work details, and so on. And when confronted, they apologise and inform that a Vodafone representative had gone to my home address and since there was nobody then, we can take the details on the phone. I told them to ask the guys to come back again after taking an appointment. But till date, nobody has called me again.

In the meanwhile, I am always dreading that the connection(s) could go dead anytime (for lack of address verification!).

I had received a couple of phone calls explaining me the plans that I had subscribed to. These were very nice, polite and informative conversations. But I already had this information from my first visit to the Vodafone office.

Mobile Unlocking - This has been a horrible nightmare. I have already lost Rs.1200.00 (Rs.700 for unlocking and Rs.500 for solving an issue after that) but the phone again had a problem and is currently unusable.

Internet
Broadband - This has to be the best experience as yet. I had received a leaflet at home for Airtel phone and broadband. Called the person, set up an appointment and he promptly came to explain the various options (including what the competitor offers), fill the forms, and take the payment. The wiring was done the next evening at 8pm. And another person set up the broadband the next day. And it has been a smooth ride since then. Apart from the one occasion, when the line went dead - it seems there was another set up going on in the building and the wiring might have been affected during that time. But it was solved within half an hour, so no major grief. Apart from my anxiety whether this has something to do with address verification .

Other
Milk, newspaper, vegetables, medicines, grocery, and taxi can be ordered over the phone and are delivered without any extra charges. Businesses will send a person to collect cheques and forms to remove the delay it could take for you to go and buy from their premises and to eliminate the risk of you going to a competitor. This is super convenience and comparable to the online services in the western world with an edge over the flexibility in delivery times - my shoe-rack was delivered at 10pm. One should appreciate why e-commerce has to be approached from a different angle in India. Phone and human resource availability is the major competition for Internet in India. Even for bill payments, India has drop box facilities which I think are easier than online payments (for the majority who are still not comfortable with the computers and internet).

Travel
Meru - Call 022-44224422 and you can get a taxi at your doorstep. The service is very good. I wanted a taxi at 11.30pm at Airoli (in Navi Mumbai) and they arranged it within 15 minutes of my call.
BEST - Apart from some dangerous drivers, I am pretty impressed with BEST. It is superb value for money. I have used a combination of the two sites http://www.bestundertaking.com/transport/index.htm and http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/navigator1/index.html to plan the journey and though both the sites are rudimentary, they are quite useful. BEST has introduced a suburban and city day pass for Rs.20/Rs.25 which is fantastic. Nowhere in the world can you get so much for so little. If you get a window seat, it comes with the added advantage of going through some amusing placards, slogans, information boards along the way e.g. today I saw an ad for ‘Car Fiancee’.

More to follow…

It took one week for my mobile connection to get activated (I will be writing a critical review of Vodafone later) and left with no internet connection anywhere for me.

But slowly things are getting sorted out and we had a good week - including a fantastic trip to my native place (I drove my father’s Indica cursing the drivers all along). Surprisingly for everybody Advaita has adjusted quite well and is enjoying all this. He has so many small kiddy uncle and aunts, and big number of grandparents and quite a few great grandparents - amazing!

Will write later - I am sweating in a shady cybercafe.

… but still micro-blogging on Twitter @sandeepmeher and Facebook.

Driving down IT Operations Costs

Introduction

Even before the economic downturn started, organisations were always exploring ideas for bringing down the IT Operations costs of running live systems. The economic downturn has just brought more rigour or pressure in exercises aiming to reduce costs. IT service providers are exasperated as they are reaching a point where they can only maintain a skeletal support team and have to start absorbing risks associated with it and are vary of any more cuts demanded of them.

This document aims to address how organisations can prepare for any further cost reductions in the IT Operations costs by opting for an Incident Based Price Model in place of the traditional Fixed Price or Time & Material Price models.

Current Models: Challenges and Limitations

Where does the supplier get half a person? Fixed Price and T&M Price Models have been effective for both buyers and suppliers of IT Services in Production Support and Operations till the number of FTE (full time equivalent) were at least 2 for a certain application group. But for organisations having a complex IT landscape (number of small disparate systems complex enough to warrant multiple technical skills), the number of personnel required to service the volume of actual incidents or problems may not be justifiable.

Early indication of a problem on the horizon is when the buyer starts asking for a fraction of FTE or when the supplier starts offering that. This is when compromises start happening and risks being taken for parameters such as backup plans of staff e.g. replacement in case of illness or holidays.

The New Approach

Incident based pricing is not new - product vendors have been following this model indirectly for ages. It may be new to the support involved for customised and bespoke applications.

The key is of course to put a price tag on an individual incident. The most obvious step seems to be on the basis of Severity. But there are other parameters to be considered e.g. a sev 1 incident might be due to a server powered down by mistake for which the resolution is as simple as switching it on and taking care that the OS and applications start in a controlled fashion. On the other hand, a sev 4 incident could be about bank address of a particular customer changed but not picked up by a payment process in time for automatic debit. This could be more difficult to investigate and resolve than the sev 1 mentioned earlier.

Of course, including too many parameters would lead to a additional overhead in finalising a contract as well as billing. Though a daunting task, overhauling the contract and billing systems to include as many relevant parameters as possible, may make it possible to have a finer control. But till then, it is important to strike a balance and design a matrix that could be in the following format-

		Complexity
Severity	Low		Medium		High
Sev 1		£250		£500		£1000
Sev 2		£100		£250		£500
Sev 3		£30		£50		£75
Sev 4		£20		£30		£40
Sev 5		£10		£20		£30

One of the parameters defining the complexity could be the number of applications or support groups impacted.

Regular maintenance activities and critical activities can be charged at a special rate or allowed to fall in one of the above cells.

Controls will have to be put in place for incidents travelling from one support group to another and back.

Treatment to be decided for unresolved incidents. ‘No payments till resolution’ could be considered as an automatic penalty and would result in avoiding efforts for a separate penalty system under the other price models. But this would introduce the new risk and additional overhead of the incident resolution sign-off process in some cases.

Since the billing is directly linked to incident resolution, there is an incentive for the supplier to resolve the incidents as quickly as possible. And there will be no need for a rigourous SLA, at least for low severity incidents. This would also save on the related overheads of tracking and following up supplier on the SLAs.

This is a work in progress and the Google Doc here will be updated with any future changes.

A few days back, we had been to Banham Zoo in Norfolk - first zoo visit for my son, Advaita. It was a good day out. I think this was one of my best shots that day.

I was looking for a book that looks at the life of top executives in corporate and wanted to avoid business biographies. Luckily, I came across the “The Secrets of CEOs: 150 Global Chief Executives Lift The Lid On Business, Life And Leadership by Steve Tappin and Andrew Cave” which claims to have interviewed 150 CEOs and present the result of their research. Impressively, it has a foreword by Sir Richard Branson.

The book is divided in three parts - the first explains the current problems or challenges faced by CEOs (not exhaustive and a Chapter dedicated to each problem), the second categorises CEOs in five groups (a Chapter dedicated to each category) and provides a profile of one CEO falling in each of these group. This is the inspirational part and can help you in understanding what category you fall in as a leader. The third is supposed to be a compilation of CEOs’ secrets and guidance. But is actually a lot of management/leadership gyaan peppered with CEOs’ quotes.

I think one of the best part would have been “The Fellowship” section in Chapter 12, but that is very brief and just touches on an idea and this is an area where the CEOs’ might not have actually shared their secrets. Chapter 13 “Preparing to Lead” and Chapter 14 “Heeding the CEO Health Warning” provides career guidance and counselling - now the question is do aspiring CEOs really require this or not - I mean actual worthy candidates will find their way anyway.

One profile has definitely made a lasting impression - Terry Leahy - Tesco CEO since 1997 - who started as casual worker at the age of 23 becoming a director at the age of 30 and CEO at the age of 40.

Ben Verwaayen - BT CEO from 2001 to 2008 was the other inspiring personality in the book. And one of the striking quotes from Verwaayen was - “The biggest disease at companies is that it is more important to please your boss than to please yourself. It is very hard to get rid of because it is in people’s DNA. People want to please their boss so if he wants nonsense, they will serve it hot or cold or however he wants it.”

Overall, a book which does not require your 100% attention but can be added to the reading list for slightly more than a quick glance through.

Interestingly, both US CTO and CIO appointed in Obama’s administration are of Indian origin - Vivek Kundra and Aneesh Chopra. And there is a debate going on in the tech circle whether these appointments are right or not - not just debate - it is mudslinging now. Today this has reached new levels with John C. Dvorak asking whether Vivek is a phony. On the other hand, Tim O’Reilly had showered glowing praise - Why Aneesh Chopra is a Great Choice for Federal CTO and continues to support both the appointments.

Also, I don’t understand how the Indian media miss out on all this masala. Generally they go over the top about the achievements or infamy of Indians (or people of Indian origin) abroad.

The reason might be the attitude of so called entrepreneurs - blaming the bigger organisations i.e. blaming others for their failures. Please read this rant Why Wipro, Infosys and TCS are “Axis of Evil” for Indian startups!.

As a comics fan - maybe not as much as those who attend the Comic-Con, I was very interested in the two unconventional super-hero movies, Hancock and Unbreakable. Both the movies are very different but both portray super-heroes facing problems similar to ordinary human beings. The very conventional Peter Parker/Spider-man faces human problems but he faces those as Peter Parker not as Spider-man. Hancock faces a drinking problem. And David Dunn (Unbreakable) doesn’t even know that he has extraordinary powers (the whole movie is based on how he is made aware of that). Both have relationship issues.
Shyamalan’s every movie is compared with The Sixth Sense and then criticised how it fails to reach that level. I think that is very unfair. But compared to Signs and The Village, Unbreakable might be (or have been as I am watching it after 9 years of its release ) more likeable to The Sixth Sense fans. It has a very similar beginning and tries to have a similar shocking ending. But if you are a comics fan and a Shyamalan fan, Unbreakable is a fantastic treat.

BBC2 is broadcasting a fantastic series on cricket - Empire of Cricket. Any cricket fan worth his salt should not miss this. More information here - BBC Two Programmes - Empire of Cricket.

India out of T20 World Cup

I had thought about writing this for quite some time. Ab Tak Chhappan is one of the best movies to understand and implement effective Team Management - I am not joking. Having read this, if you go and watch this movie, it will be impossible not to get the point I am making. Your opinion may differ on whether it is the best lesson or not (I sure do consider it one), but you surely will agree 100% with me that it indeed is a management lesson.

I have seen this umpteen times now. Latest run on last Friday with a dear friend who completely agreed with me - he confessed that he had seen the movie but never thought about the management angle but now feels that every shot gives an insight.

My photography experiment after a long time…

HDTV connected to a Mac running Plex controlled by Apple Remote. Plex is a great replacement for Front Row because of the control, configuration and expandability options it provides and it is as slick as Apple software.

Finally, I gave up my reluctance against HTPC, shared media around house, NAS in a home etc. and decided to do get started on a project to take a leap in that direction. Problem: 2 external hard disks, 1 old eMac desktop computer, 1 Macbook Pro (MBP) and an old TV. I want to use the MBP to play my HD movies stored on the external hard disks on the old TV.

eMac is wired to the wireless router. External hard disks are connected to the eMac. So sharing the hard disks makes it (and the movies) available on the wireless network that serves the MBP. But this requires the eMac to be on all the time which is a waste of electricity. Actually it should be ON for the MBP to access the files. And then it can be turned OFF. But physically turning it ON/OFF is painful. I was aware of the wake on lan feature and decided to give it a try. A utility WakeOnLan is available from ReadPixel which allows a similar thing - instead of ON/OFF one can Wake/Sleep a computer on the network. And getting this done was a small source of joy.

The last part is not going to be that simple. For playing a movie on the old TV using the MBP is going to be a challenge (£15 + a few couple more) as I could only find Apple makes the DVI to S-video/RGB cable. There are loads of DVI to HDMI options but no S-video/RGB and hence connecting to “old” TV is a problem. Now, the challenge is spend £15 for the DVI to S-video or £600+ for a new TV and the connector. The later option looks so tempting!!! I am not going for the S-video cable right now.

I used to cringe whenever I heard/read comics being referred as Graphic Novels (I thought that term was redundant). But then I came across the fantastic Sandman and I can say that comics and Graphic Novels are two different entities. There is no superhero by the name Sandman (at least not in the two volumes I read in last couple of weeks). It is a “a comic book for intellectuals.” See the Wikipedia entry for more details.

Will start updating regularly from this week. At least one friend cares and hence this update.