Diwali special on Product Design at SLP Hyderabad

SLP Hyderabad got together for its third class after sparkling Diwali to talk about Product Design. To guide us through Product Design, we had Rajiv Shivane from Pramati, Ramesh Loganathan from Progress Software, Sundar Subramanian from SalesForce (previously DimDim) and Rama Brahmam from ThinkDesign.

Aishwarya kicked of the morning summarizing his thoughts on finding startup success. Among many vocal discussions, few salient draws from them were to

• Validate your idea early and identify ways to thrive for the long run.

• Determine defensibility of an idea but not to obsess about it. It is important to understand the startup's core offering and continuously improve on that offering.

• Remember that raising capital is one of the many inputs to achieving growth. Raising capital without clear strategy on Product Design may lead to risk ignorance and complacency.

Rama shared his insight of UX design process at ThinkDesign and how he engages with his customers. Rama identified key steps in product design that aid in validating ideas by building low fidelity prototypes to full fledged UX models that assist in building successful products. He shared his experience on the desire for companies to invest in design initially but lose sight of it when schedule and scope pressures creep in. His advise to avoid the same mistake was valuable.

Sundar while explaining how DimDim (now Sales Force) came into existence highlighted the importance of not only identifying the pain points but also understanding which among those will the customer actually pay for. This exercise to identify features that a customer is willing to pay is very critical for startups to optimally utilize their limited resources.

The panel discussion highlighted the need to draw the right learning from failures. Many obstacles while starting up may occur but identifying them early on and adopting necessary course corrections are essential traits of a successful startup. To enable early identification, devising right metrics can help solve problems through data than gut.

The deep dive into Niranjan's venture, Playsportz was quite valuable both for him and the class. After the deep dive, one of the biggest takeaways for Niranjan was the importance to keep an open mind to entertain alternative execution strategies. After receiving couple of valuable options that he did not think while working on his business, he realized that stepping back and considering alternative strategies is as important as the initial business plan.

Thanks to Aishwarya for his efforts to bring the panel and class together.

Rails Double loading

<code>Rails console work revealed a rails file being loaded twice but some of the code was external to me. So, I could not really
where it was coming from. Jason King had this nice tip.

</code>

It looks like things are being loaded twice. Not sure what `config/preinitializer.rb` is (part of your own project?) but obviously rack shouldn't be loaded twice. This can happen if two things are requiring the same file in different ways the only way that `require` protects you from multiple-loading is a string comparison of what was required. Eg. require 'redcloth' and require 'RedCloth' will both succeed.

The simplest way to resolve this is to edit the files that are being loaded, and at the very top of them (to debug) just put this:

y caller

Then just fire up your console, and you should get a stack trace of where the files are being loaded from. You might find multiple load points in your project, or at least some hints as to where to look for the double-loading.

Does the Government of India care for its citizens, especially its poor?

After a long blogging hiatus, the Bhopal verdict today made my blood boil and I just felt like writing. 26 years, that's how long its taken for this verdict - Two freaking years for each of the convicted, who got out without a fret on bail. To further ridicule both the living and the dead, UCIL was  only asked to pay 5 lakhs as fine. Great, further this rotten judicial system and we shall continue to bask in the glory of 'India Shinning'.

These past six months of stay in India has revealed something very sad. Respect to both living and the dead in India are confined to the religious epics, the people and government in general care less (including me). It only stays in memory for a few minutes and forgotten or swept under the rug real quickly.

Prime examples are the recent spate of attacks on CRPF, the attach on the Gyaneshwar Express and the judgement on Bhopal. Most dead are India's poor and the elitist government has turned a blind eye.

Koda Episode - Aberration or Norm?

I think we as Indians should be ashamed to call ours a civilized society. There is hardly anything civil about the nature of how these criminal, absolute inhuman rogues get away. In the case of Koda and Ekka as this blogs point out, the two national parties are directly involved breathing life into who eventually turned out to be scumbags. I am not trying to accuse the leaders of these parties but if they have an ounce of spinal fluid left in their system, they would bring these morons to justice in the quickest possible way and distribute all their wealth to protecting the wealth of the state. To hear each day a statement like Rich State, Poor people have to be like a Thorn in the eye.

While it is good to hear speeches, it is time the President does something rather than remain a 'rubber stamp'. I often think whether that post has any use at all. While Manmohan Singh seems a nice man, it takes someone with far more audacity to wipe out the menace once for all.

When we lift are MLA and MP's to safety for purely selfish power grabbing reasons, we are sacrificing the core reason why we exist as humans. It wouldn't be far fetched to say that these leaders are leading us to oblivion and creating more maosits every damn day. With folks like Koda minting at a startling official figure of 4000 crores, all tribals in Jharkand are a Maoist waiting to happen.

Although anecdotal, each trip I've heard stories about how Chandrababu Naidu amassed 1000's of crores, same is the case with late YSR and his son Jagan, Venkaiah Naidu and his brethren, same in Bombay, similar with the 'mining' brothers in Bangalore.

I cannot imagine that YSR and co got away (during recent elections) declaring assets of 50 lakhs as their entire property. How can one for a minute even think of making that document public and absolve the scrutiny that may come with? How dumb can they expect the citizens to get? And, for that matter, the entire legal system. Perhaps, it is for this reason. When the CJI of India and his team can claim their entire earnings are about 40-50 lakhs, anything is possible.

It is certainly not an aberration but a norm. We do live in times where for a few cents more, everyone of these buggers will sell darn anything, including the sovereignty of the country. Folks like Koda and Ekka would have no clue what that would mean...

TheMoth.org

I happened to listen to three stories today on NPR from a collection at TheMoth.org. One of them from Ed Gavagan is on their featured listings. The stories told with no notes, prompts are told live in free form. When I sat down in the car, I had a short drive and the first one started playing. Within the first few minutes, I was so spell bound that I had to pull into a parking lot, turned off the engine and sat there listening to the next full hour.

I was just blown away by the shear eloquence of the story tellers, normal folks like you and I who could recite a deeply moving/funny/serious incident that occurred in their lives. If you have not heard about TheMoth.org, you are missing a great deal. Check'em out.

What a Dick!

Did you see the US open final between Federer and Del Potro? A great game. Dick Enberg, MC interviewed Federer and then Del Potro in English. Del Potro made a very gracious speech in English and then requested the MC to speak a few words in Spanish.

The prick Dick refused the first time saying there was no time and proceeded to ignore him. Del Potro who was living the best moment of his life, and wanted to address his native country had a very confused look and had to ask a second time before Mr. Enberg handed it over saying that he would speak short. WTF!!
The man of the evening wants a minute or two to address his fellow Argentinians and he has to take the permission of the old hag.

Get a life, CBS should ask him to issue an apology and ask him to lock himself with Serena to help her shove that ball that she so wanted to shove. That would work each other out..

The Double Talker -- Just Awesome

I don't usually break out in laughter (esp, alone) at office but this did it. This is just awesome.

Price is Right-Joseph, the "double talker"

Beautiful Rails

This past couple of weeks I was back again working with Rails. This was after an initial discussion with Indian Railways GM who said a prototype/demo might help them with the service proposal. I was after their API but apparently at this point, if someone wants to use their API, it is burdened with huge price and unrealistic requirements. At some point, they had 20 lakhs of deposit and 5 crores of turnover to even qualify to use their API. It is mind-numbingly cruel on their part to ignore young budding entreprenuers but that is for a different topic.

While I was experiment about their APIs, I wondered if it would as restful as Rails is. I still have no idea but I still had to come up with a prototype to discuss what I intended to offer. Rewind 2 weeks, I had no site, no code written. Today, albeit in a dev environment, I have couple of pretty decent Rails sites that talk to each other via XML, all written to be Restful.

Technology is wonderful, the ones that make sense and are easy to use are even more satisfying. Rails is cool, easy to prototype and amazingly fast to adapt. The plugins that are available to support are just limitless.

As part of this effort, I ended up using the following open source resources:

• Ruby on Rails
• Passenger (Deployment of RoR apps in an easy and robust way on Apache)
• Subdomain-Fu
  (Helps in subdomain management)
• Nifty Generators
• AuthLogic
• Dyndns (the site that helps you host on your box by managing your dynamic IP address at home)
  
• ActiveResource (part of rails)
• Apache

I just wish there was open source hosting sites that would let you host until you move to commercial space. Not all of us are seed funded. All in all, exciting two weeks. I plan to enhance it further until the folks in Delhi ask for one or deny. If they do not ask for a demo, backup plans are to contact other OTA's or go solo. Either ways, its exciting.

Time please, more time.

I am busy, heck a lot a busy and I wish there was more time than 24 hours in a day. Work after the layoffs has doubled up. I volunteer as a Director at Austin PMI and am helping AustinPMI launch a new Event Registration System while planning their largest annual event.

Wife and kid are back home and the little one's energy is like a flooded river. She wants to go where we want us not to go, touch things we don't want her to touch and taste things we don't want her to taste. Leaving her out of sight is scary but playing with her is just oodles of fun. So, after work until she sleeps is dedicated to her.

I barely make time for the other half and apparently she is used to it. I am busy with my laptop a whole lot. For the past three weeks, I am. It seems a good 18 hours is spent on the computer, be it at work or after work activity. I have been working on a prototype on something exciting using Ruby on Rails and have pitched the idea to Indian Railways.

This is the first time I have cold called regarding something that I strongly believe has immense potential and is quite original. I have several rounds of ideas but not all I could pursue and fell through. One of them was actually stolen, but, its better used than swept under the rug.

This time, I am serious. I so wish I could just drop the ball and go to India to pursue this service that I am after. In any case, I spoke to a wonderful GM at Delhi who was forthcoming in saying that government matters take time. I wish it didn't and they'd let me demo the prototype. Spent couple of weekends re-learning all of the rails and plugin stuff, and came with a restful, web service.

Hoping for next level of talks...

Inthikhab - InTheKhwab!!

I was shocked today to read Mr. Inthikhab Alam shocked's reaction to ICC's move to strip Pakistan of world cup hosting rights. Is this moron on drugs or does he and his players not understand what just happened to Sri Lankan team? His word was 'unjust'. WTF?

I can understand that an attack can unfortunately happen in any part of the world. The probability in a few countries is relatively less and in a others, a bit more. In Pakistan, with the shit thats going around, the mullahs and madrasas gaining autonomy, with its "International Migraine" status, it becomes just unbelievably important to provide security as good as it gives it own President.

Hmm, lets see, instead, their own giant retards came in motor cycles, took their time, fired at will, and then some walked and others drove free. The video was disgusting. And, he describes what ICC did as unjust. Unjust is what you and your countrymen did to Srilankan team and those poor umpires who came to play in your country.

Sense that the world is laughing at you each and every day. Two months would make no freaking difference. It is certain that the crap you created will keep exploding each day amongst you and your people.

Bleep, Bleep and more Bleep

Prime time, its 8:30 PM and I was flipping channels and stopped for a minute to watch Hell's Kitchen. Chef Ramsey was running one of his kitchen boot camps and was in his worst mood (he seldom has another expression on his face). Most often he is filled with disgust, taunts his campers and fires them at the end of it. I cannot see a decent meal come out of that place...

To top it off, every sentence either starts with an expletive or ends with another expletive. Of course, it's all ok since the media bleeps the expletive. So, the sentence sounds like 'bleep the bleep out, where's my bleepin rare steak', 'my bleepin salad looks like a bleepin desert'.

Media claims that they bleep because people take objection to the expletives or children may watch this objectionable material. Here is news to them: the damn word is too obvious, so why bleep at all? Just lift the curtains or cut the crap from prime time.

Wait, we know the answer. They bleepin don't care!!

India - update 2

Being home is awesome. But, being away also teaches you to look at certain things in a different perspective. If you are in country that has infrastructure in a far better fashion, you tend to think why India cannot be that way. When you look at some of the road projects that are underway, its hardly something India can be proud of. As an example, we drove on the Nellore - Chennai highway that is fairly decent to drive on only if you don't have a RTC bus in front of you or if you don't have a truck that is merging into the highway. Some of the lane merges and bus stops defy basic civil engineering principles and the architect of these roads got to surrender his Civil Engineering license. It is shameful to say the least when you could have looked at hundreds of examples of how a road should be.

Talking of examples, a developing country like India can choose to acquire the best technology there is. Seems like that is happening in the mobile telephone infrastructure. I was travelling by the local train from my village to Chennai during rush hour. On my plinky wooden seat, there were five of us squeezed together. It was an hour's ride where I saw someone easily making a 500 bucks in matter of minutes selling his 'Lovely' juicer, a small little tool that could help the juice out. I saw three daily wage workers with the most sophisticated telephones that you could ever see. It had movie streaming, audio and syncing  capabilites and the best part all three were being put to use by someone who probably never had an opportunity to read. One of them said, 'da matchi, andha song enga anpe (send me that song)' and the other oblidged by connecting to this other device via blue tooth. In a matter of seconds, both were synced up. Beauty of technology -- present it in a usable fashion and the masses will take care of the rest. If that only were followed in our road system, we would have seen better infra.

Come elections, several of us have heard politicians promise color TV's, gold for women in the manifestos. What in the world is the Election commision doing letting this craptards promise such ludicrous agendas? When a family out there is searching for food, a color TV's in his/her dining room would serve no good.

Expecting a sensible government in India is to expect a religion without hell.

The last week was a breeze. Few dinners, last minute get togethers and a promise that I would return soon enough occupied most of it. Headed to the Hyderabad airport at 2 in the morning. The airport and its facilities are certainly world class but the security sub-standard. Neither are they patient enough to understand what the passenger talks nor are they prepared to deal with such things. I had a BA e-ticket and in my anxiety to leave home, I had forgotten to take the print out. If an e-ticket is issued, most places across the world don't need to have one. The first security guy started showing full attitude and said go get the print out. Some other person with some sense had an itinerary of passengers flying with BA. Simple solution. If the politicians let some sensible people get on board, we would soon see a much better India. In a year or more time, I hope to get there either to change or be changed.

Kaizen Technologies Review

Its H1-B time of the year when folks start searching for companies to apply their H1's. It is very similar to the scene where hundreds of deer cross the river knowing mightly the fact that there are crocodiles lurking. Their only hope, I might get lucky due to sheer numbers and escape unhurt.

After years of hearing body shopping companies exploiting folks, a friend of mine and I finally succumbed to fall in the line of GC aspirants and got suckered into a tie up with a company called Kaizen Techonlogies in NJ. The sad part was that these folks were known to me and thus felt trustworthy.

Kaizen supposedly means continous improvement and I find them no different than any other body shopping place who primarily look for ways to cover their ass while they leave their employees high and dry. In our case, it wasn't for GC's but for both our I140s.

The disagreement came when both of us had asked them to support the denial of I140 by responding in a concrete fashion to argue that they have the capability to pay our wages. They insisted that I paid 1500 dollars before and they may consider. By this point, I had already paid enough for I140 expenses and had lost all confidence in the way they respond to emails, phone calls and their so called law-firm was below par. It seems that their auditors do not approve 'such' expenses. When the company's financial strength is at question, the least you could do if you haven't earned it the wrong way is to respond. I guess their decision not to respond says quite a bit.

What is it that these companies get that they always do things that is against the very name that they started with? Kaizen -- continous improvement? You sure are improving at deceit and unprofessionalism.

Vijay who handles most of this said 'it is our first denial'. I guess at the very first denial if they decide to cop out and run for cover, my sincere advice to people who stumble across this post searching for review on Kaizen technologies -- Run real hard the other way. When the company deserts you when it matters the most, then they don't deserve a thought and definitely not your presence. Stay away.

Drunk at 10DS

10DS rocked. The crowed pickedup at 10:30 or so and at the last call,
the dance floor was packed to the brim. After spending 10K, walked away
with a few pictures that would provide a perfect reason for me to stay
away from mixing stuff..

I can't really remember the last time I was drunk. Good company, nice
music and few last shots got me this time at 10DS. Between the
combination of Whisky and Tequilla, I lost count and while I did that,
gave a perfect opportunity for my SO (significant other) to say 'I said
so'.

Drive to late night munch at Ohri's was a total blur and I
am sure I totally jay-walked raising a few eyebrows. As much fun I had,
the next day ended up with dull mood and gross hangover.

I suppose with all the fun I had that day, the only sane way is to live
up to the year of broken detoxification promise.

India -- Update 1

It often seems that the trip just started even though I have been here for about a month and half. There is so much more to explore, so many more to establish contact with and so much more to glean from. I pack up in about a week and half and this trip was a real treat.

I have had the opportunity to work remotely and seems to have contributed much more than what I could if i had stayed back. Technology has worked wonders and communication to US has been a breeze. The broadband connection I had taken was very reliable. VOIP never acted up and magicjack truly works wonders.

If you plan on working remotely and plan vacations around it, do plan for lesser ones. It seems working nights and staying awake during days does take a toll after all. I had some ambitious plans to explore North India but with airports as far as they are in Hyderabad and in other cities, the idea of flying does not seem too appealing.

My first part of the working vacation was spent in supporting Austin team. In the meanwhile, caught up with a few at a friend's wedding. Saw first hand how most people these days attend weddings mostly as a chore than to bless the couple. Most people had their own agenda at the event, never really cared for what they came in for, had their grub and checked out. Weddings have been very commerical and seems like it had to be scaled down in terms of their pomp and raked up in tradition. Nevertheless, it was fun for some of us who have missed on a few.

Enjoyed home made food, pampered my bro's kids and my own and attended a few parties. Most parties were buzz with election news, economy gloom and real estate bust. Speculation rife, the parties still had a character to them.

Plans to explore aspects of moving here were temporarily put on hold because of the state of the economy. Most feel 2009 after elections would be very gloomy and this ain't the right time. It sure did not look like one. My trip to the massive IT areas had half finished buildings with few laborers lurking around. Last time, every thing seemed closer but this time it seemed that the haphazard constructions were going to cost the city. Bangalore seemed very different with roads dug up everywhere for the metro rail.

All in all, have seen facets of good growth albeit executed in a bad way.

Why the shor?

Slumdog, after all its hoopla got its 8 oscars. If I were on the panel, I would rate as a well-made film but certainly does not deserve all the band-bhaja its getting. Damn, after the awards, the Indian media seemed like it was celebrating victory over the world. What for?

For the hype that was generated in the media, the governing body would have made its verdict a week or two back. For some of its actors, it may be a proud moment to be associated with a film that won the oscar, but neither can it be a claimed as an Indian victory nor it changes much of the persona of what Bollywood is.

For the western audience, it would just solidify their beliefs that most of us dance with women on corny scores and bullock carts are our main source of transportation. Yeah, real Jai Ho.

Krrrr Krrr...

Know what that sounds like, scratching the bottom of the barrel. On one end (no pun intended), we have Obama getting elected raising hopes in ways nobody ever dreamed off, and on the other in India, we find crooks like Sanjay Dutt and Azharuddin to run for power.

The Dutt guy cannot act, cannot live his life straight without drugs, leads both his private and public life in a despicable fashion and receives support from another scumbag Amar Singh. To top if off, Amar Singh pulls off the Manyata stunt. The other Azhar -- what a role model he is? Screws up his cricketing career, ditches his wife and children for another bimbo and now wants to find his place in politics.

How in the world do these dumbwits have the audacity to stand up after all their fuck-ups? It isn't as much crime for them to run for power as it would be if we voted them in. So, please don't.

Rehman Rocks!!

I came across this song while I was reading one of my favorite blogs. She pointed to a song that she could not just sit back and not dance to and I see why. This is from Delhi 6 starring Abhishek and Sonam Kapoor. Listen to this song called Masakkali. Boy, does Rehman Rock or what? I love songs which are totally bindaas, and invite people like me who cannot break a step to do what they best do, Jump. And, I am at this very moment. My wife would kick some butt, she can practically pick up any step in a minute or two on this song..

Here India, I come to jump and live two months of carefree life. For now, increase that PC volume and break a sweat...

Bizarre Week..

This past few days have been stressful to say the least. Anytime one has to move, it is painful. To mitigate some of it, I hired a couple of movers. As usual they came in an hour late, were lazy a***holes, and to top it off, worked only a couple of hours leaving behind a bunch of tiny stuff that I had to come back and break my back to finish the job.

Since I leave in a couple of days to India, there were ton of invitations from people to come by and join them for dinner. I usually am one of those 'cannot-say-no' types and hesitatingly said yes to a couple of them each involving a 20 mile drive.

Yesterday night was one of them where I pulled into a gas station to fill up my Lexus. Filled, moved a feet forward or so, and out of no where, a Chevy truck came in front and ripped my front bumper apart. The guy was pretty decent, exchanged info and on my way..

Had my dinner at friends, headed out to another friend to crash for the night. Drove another 10 miles with the bumper half kissing Lexus and the other half kissing the road. Got home, wanted to call my wife, and the battery goes dead. Had a Sony Ericsson, so their cell phone chargers are the crappy kind with no USB support, so had to wait for the next day.

Got up next day, went to the collision center to get a quote. Asked them if I could use one of their computers to call a few office colleagues, the answer, our office blocks all sites. WTF?

Decided to drive the same half-bumper-falling Lexus to my friend's apt where i had my second car parked, and saw that I had a flat tire on Honda Accord.

What are the freakin chances that two cars, cell phone dead and two insisting friends invite for dinner on the same day? Change people, please, leave the dinners alone when the guy is busy. Puhleezz..

I am waiting for this bizarre week to end. Waiting to sit back on British Airways with a glass of wine and head home...

UPS -- unparalleled service

I was very impressed today with UPS delivery service. I was expecting a package from British Consulate. At 8AM, UPS called me that it is on the delivery truck and I should expect it. Unfortunately, the window was too big, 8AM to 7PM. I could not really sit and wait home, so I left to work.

At 10AM, they made an attempt and left a note on my door. I noticed at 11 AM online, called them to hold the package at their office instead of making another delivery run. The lady at UPS customer service took my number and told me I should expect a call within an hour from the local office here in Austin to let me know the time to visit their office.

It must have been not more than 5 minutes when I got a call from local Austin office informing me to come by their office at 7:30 PM. Just to avoid the drive, I asked if she could intercept the driver of the truck and let me know where his next stop would be so that I could run and pick it up. She said, she would try, in another 5 minutes told me the address. I went by, another 5 minutes the truck was there and voila, I had my package. Now, that's putting technology to use. Amazing...