Prayer

What is a prayer ...

Is there someone listening to your prayers? I don't believe
so but still why do people (we) pray?

Why can't we pray to a person and why are we looking at something
which we don't know whether exist or NOT ..
Why not pray to a person we know...

It is something like telling things to your closest friend or wife ... but the
issue there with the friend or wife will judge us for all what we are saying
so we cannot pray to them ... because we will meet them again and the
judged personality from you will be open to him/her.

Precisely the point...So, we create a person who will listen
to us without judging ... even if he judges he never tells
that back. So if you can tell something to someone without
being judged is the best thing one can expect.



Prayer is ...

That and telling someone your problems (or more generally,
your life situation) without any fear of being judged as a
result…

What is wrong with tropical people!!!

How westerners treat themselves and others.


They treat them (selves and others) with analytic, reasoning and not with much
emotion. There is always bio-driven selfishness to be accounted
but, leaving that.... they seems to me are more reasonable and accountable.

On the other hand ... Indians treat even business with
emotion. Why?

Is it so in other countries of tropical-region? Is the climate
and environment makes this mental habit or behavior?

I started writing this blog after reading a blog about "Jesus Vs economics".

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/the-greatest-question-ever-asked/


I went through 40+ responses to this and look at the responses
Westerners treat even Jesus with reasoning. If the same question have
been asked even about Gandhi (leave alone Indian god). The
response if unedited would not be readable. I am sure.

What is wrong with this tropical living creatures (Indians).


Kasi
P.S. just a rant.

SMS business idea

SMS business.

Here is an idea i have been thinking about... and even proposed to someone in this space.
Though the Idea is good (according to me ha..ha...ha..) ... making it work is
a big challenge.

I call it "Pincode.com" ... this name is probably influenced by reading somewhere...probably rajesh-jain's blog.


You tell me (through sms) where you are right now with your pincode... i will give you what is exciting right now happening in the pincode.

Exciting: Events, Sale (discounts), Hotels etc.,etc.,

U show my SMS and redeem ...


This is just like creating a virtual world on the SMS-cloud....similar to www ...but a volatile data which vanishes every week or month. Some of the data can be everyday updated (totally contrary to www where the data resides for 10's of years).

What this calls for is million dollar investment to cover even part of a big city like Mumbai or Chennai.

Ultimately this can boil down to page-ranking level which i call "Cell ranking"

Based on cell ranking we can give more to a cell and block a cell....like how a page-ranking works now the Google.


Kasi

The following report and analysis is taken from somewhere ... i thought i
will post it here... to remind to look at it after 10-years ... whether
i fall into this as an entrepreneur ... the report says i have good chance !!! :-)


In any case, here are some of the points from the report that
I found the most interesting.

1. The average and median age of company founders when they started their current companies was 40.

2. 95.1 percent of respondents themselves had earned bachelor’s degrees, and 47 percent had more advanced degrees.

3. Less than 1 percent came from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds

4. 15.2% of founders had a sibling that previously started a business.

5. 69.9 percent of respondents indicated they were married when they launched their first business. An additional 5.2 percent were divorced, separated, or widowed.

6. 59.7 percent of respondents indicated they had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 43.5 percent had two or more children.

7. The majority of the entrepreneurs in the sample were serial entrepreneurs. The average number of businesses launched by respondents was approximately 2.3.

8. 74.8 percent indicated desire to build wealth as an important motivation in becoming an entrepreneur.

9. Only 4.5 percent said the inability to find traditional employment was an important factor in starting a business.

10. Entrepreneurs are usually better educated than their parents.

11. Entrepreneurship doesn’t always run in the family. More than half (51.9 percent) of respondents were the first in their families to launch a business.

12. The majority of respondents (75.4 percent) had worked as employees at other companies for more than six years before launching their own companies.

Which of the above surprises you the most and alters your mental model of what entrepreneurs are like?

One life....

All we got is ... one life.


Think about born again with all your 40+ knowledge 20+energy and 60+wisdom.

We do have the entire 60+ years ahead.

Why i am blabbering about this?

I am 43 now and I feel less enthusiastic about changing the world
i see ... the thought i had when i was 20+.


At 20+ i felt that the whole life is in-front of me to explore.
I repeat... life is in-front of me to explore.


But after reaching 40+ i feel like i have left a lot behind doing
nothing to change the world as i see it.

Even the people i meet and all my friends are not talking about
changing the world and not talking about what is wrong with the world.
Most of them are talking about "how much we have saved"... to lead the
rest of the life..."how much we have earned"... that sounds more like...

i am getting ready to retire and die.


I am now wondering what it would feel like when i am 50+...

Will my friends talk about who are all alive and who are all dead?? and
not about changing the world?


Will that be like i am almost done and let me look for decent
death?
Will that be like I have left all these years doing nothing
and what i am going to do with aching leg, head and spine?

Will that be like I am closer to death and let me look for
things to feed without working?

Are there people who changed the world they saw... after 40?

There are very few .... Am i one of them?

Let me see.

Thought and Solar Energy

Here is an interesting comment i made to my colleague today (8th Sep 2009)

I asked him " you look like you are lost in your thoughts"

He said..."yes ... i was thinking about something" "how can anyone
be without thinking"..."We always think".

Then i made this comment out of the blue (which i think i was
thinking about when i was thinking about blogs, teaching, social
media networking !!!).

"Thinking is like Solar energy...free and Wasted". He repeated the same and noded as if he acknowledged my statement "Thinking is like Solar energy...free and wasted".



Then this thought came to my mind...why there are no process
which puts all the thoughts available free and put them into
use (like solar concentrator....).

Damn my thought... that is and was done with text-books, papers,
stories.
Damn my thought... that is what google is doing concentrating the
most searched page on the topic.
Damn my thought... that is what teachers are doing ... delivering
concentrated lessons leanrt over decades.

Damn my thought...

Yet another number...

Here is another example of our obsession with number...what is so stupidly great about the number 70? If it is 50 or 100 i can understand...what is this 70?

Poland is celebrating the 70th anniversary of WWII....what a crap.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090901/ap_on_re_eu/eu_europe_wwii_anniversary

Mobile and www

Everyone wants to think mobile as another accessory of www... but
Mobile web's requirement (vast majority) and www are entirely
different. Since mobile operators know where i am (lat - lan) the service and Monetization will be entirely different from www....

Simply put

Mobile - Me
www - Some stupid server

Mobile is about when i am on the move.
www is about when i am at the desk.

Mobile is about now-near-dear.
www is about anytime-anywhere-whothehellcares

Mobile data base should be volatile.
www is century's backed-up.

Mobile is mostly about voice.
www is mostly about visual.

Voice is slow.
Visual is fastest.

Mobile - wireless
www - wired (partially wireless).

Mobile- I should be informed.
www - I seek information.

Mobile- I know who the hell r u.
www - I don't care who the hell r u.

Mobile - kept mostly closer to my heart (shirt pocket).
www - Kept in some stupid island

Mobile - You connect to me.
www - Me connect to your server

Anything more?

Statue smashing...

Thiruvalluvar statue at Bangalore and Sarvajna statue at chennai...
is it a good thing or bad thing to do?

One argument can be put in this way... now if any rift happens
between kanadikas and tamilians in bangalore or near...the
first target for kanadikas would be to smash the statue. That
will fuel the anger of tamilians and they will probably want to
retaliate fiercely.

The next thing that will happen is ... people in chennai will
smash the Sarvajna (Sarvangu as they call him in tamil) and that
will further infuriate the kanadikas.

Will this spiral the hatred between the two regional people
living in both states?

OR on the psychological front....another argument can be put.


People will show their anger on smashing the statue than smashing
people...is that good. I would say that is good...then we should
install as many such statues as possible everywhere and peoples
attention will go in protecting the statue and smashing the
statue than attacking each other

My thinking is that this fuel the people attack than bringing
harmony ...let us look at this way...what happens if tamil guys
in bangalore smashes Kempekowda OR Kevempu statue in retaliation
to smashing the thiruvalluvar statue.

According to me this is a bad move by both states to re-installing
the old-forgotten statues at both the places. We will know in
coming years that this will prove ....not too far i beleive...this is
september and we have the cauvery issue coming up.

So....What a stupid act both the state governments did.

My Stupid statement...

My stupid statement....

I have been repeatedly saying this statement for last 2-3
years to many... i donno why i believe in this...and I am
not sure of what i am saying as well.


Science is struck for last the 70-years and Engineering
took over and Engineering is getting struck for the last
10-20 years that is why we are not seeing any progress or
major breakthrough execpt exploitation industry like (mass
production, information extraction, information distribution,
spreading the same technology to underdeveloped country etc.,
etc., etc.,).


and at the end i want to finish like "Where is my De-broglie".


My hope is we will find a good scientific breakthrough soon
and then everything follows on a developmental phase rather
than the exploitation phase.

Today I am happy....

Today I am happy.

I was musing about what i did ... whether that was right or
wrong... it ultimately boiled down to ..."I am right".


Today i received the draft agreement from the client. They
have agreed to pay what i asked... i knew i am not asking
too much...9-lacs for beautiful software (every creators view
of their product is beautiful) is not more.

Anyhow let me have this momentary happiness ... I will wait
until the cash comes to my company bank account then i will
announce to other stake holders.

I wanted to make this blog short... so that i am not overwhelmed by the
"I am right".

Kasi

Twitter and economy....

Here is the comment i made on someone's blog about attention economy....

Attention is money and Free is an economy there is no question or argument about that.

What Google did? brought all the free info available at one click and doing it
the smarter way (by spending their money).

Seller attention...
That is what google is doing...bringing the attention-seeking sellers to the buyers.
That is what adverticement industry is doing ... bringing the attention
seeking sellers to the buyers through media (print,video and audio).

When it comes to social networking 'attention' it is
buyer attention ... IMHO it should work other way
around. Where the seller will go after the buyer.


If 1000's of 100 member group is talking about Nike...then Nike should
abandon Jordan's (with all due respect to his sports) endorsement and
look deeply into those groups.

If a single 1000 member tribe is talking about taking vacation to Hawaii
...the hotel should hold updating their website and concentrate on the
tribe.


If google is about finding the right seller.... (facegle and twitgle) is about
finding the right buyer.

Push-on-pulls is an easy monetization (Google).
Push alone (facegle and twitgle) will be tough though... customer may get offended on Push
even if it is genuine.

Attention is money and Free is an economy.

What is our obsession with numbers?

What is our obsession with numbers?

Today morning i received a SMS saying ... today around noon
we will witness this...

At 12 O'clock 34th minute and 56th second.... it becomes 123456 and today's date -07-08-09...123456789.

I was immediately reminded of American's would have witnessed it
a month back (because they number month first).

I switch over to Newspaper...here is an interesting news Amioh-a small
village in Haryana goes out off sex, alcohol and non-veg.

Why?

5-misterious death every 17-th day starting May-13th ...

Here is another one...
Master-blaster Sachin says He'll aim for 15,000 runs.

Here is another one ...

Remembering Heroshima after 64-years.

I wrote a mail to my friends...i am reminded of my this week
20-years back when i entered in IIT-Kanpur. The title was
20-years and still fresh...

Why 20-years still fresh?...ofcourse it is 0.5 year for
someone and 22.5 for someone and 25 for somebody else....
actually IITK is celebrating golden jubilee from today.


What is our obsession with numbers?

Kasi
P.S. People who don't have anything to do... play with numbers -Penrose.

He is right. I usually get up at 8:00-8:30 (too early for my
schedule compared to IITK days).

Today this SMS woke me up at 7:00 and did not
know what to do... then when i looked at the paper everything
looked like numbers...sensex going up 300 points, 31-men
crew trapped 70-year old man wants to cycle-stunt in Dasara
in Mysore, etc., Five -17 day death.... should I connect all these numbers
and bring something up?....I am expecting same thing happening on 999 (09-09-09).

This blog... is only for those guys who were in Hall-IV IITK during 1989.

20-years back during this week I came to IITK ...to meet Jayaraman
for any advice for joining Ph.D in IITK....he prometely took
me to one Mr. Ilangovan in C-210 and vanished.

I was at that moment had no clue of what project i will do for
my Ph.D...Ilango asked me whether I am interested in doing Ph.D
in NMR...I said yes...he asked me to come in the evening to
meet other friends.

Evening I went to C-block HallIV... there was this fat fellow
on his short without shirt...he was singing some thuthakka thuthakka
song in hindi and was hanging in the middle floor. I asked for
ilango to him....he introduced himself as DevAnand doing M.Tech
and took me to lawn and we were waiting for Ilango to come
from his lab.

Then came a group of American college guys....one lean rowdy looking
guy was there who was talking all filth and laughed loud...
I was introduced to him ... hey i am Immi...Immanual Selvaraj.
Impressive I thought....he introduced his juniors who came
to join like me.

Everyone started asking my area of interest...i had nothing to
tell except NMR...what in NMR...who the hell knew...simulation
or experiemental.... i said experimental.... because i had no
clue on what is simulation.... in chemistry there is nothing
called simulation...all glass and chemicals...there was a
big pause. I got scared...i never knew experimental in NMR
means means hardware....Ilango came and ordered for tea etc.,
to everyone I thought wow...this guy is rich.

I thought i impressed everyone only on one thing...my smoking...
I was the highest smoker in the whole group.... i smoked around
4-5 cigrettes on that evening.

Got interviewed and selected...can write a lot about that interview
as well...but will stop.

Got selected so a party was going ON with the american college
guys....that lean rowdy fellow was drinking and shouting....
but he was interesting in many ways....i thought.

Fat fellow (dev) said he will book a room for me in HallIV... so
he did... but before moving to HallIV i was put in shared room with
a mallu actioned tamil fellow called Tamil.... the first thing
that got my eye with that fellow was .... he had 4-nipples...
We shared that room for 2-3 weeks i guess... we became freinds...
though he moved to hallV i moved HallIV because i liked what
i saw in HallIV....Ilango, fat fellow and rowdy fellow.

We three are still freinds and in touch....thanx to email and internet.
It is 20-years now.... It is still good to remember that time.

Fail quick

Failing quick.

This is called testing the water... you test the water and decide quickly whether to carry forward or fail and quit.

What is the point in quitting after you start?? This is a biggest dilemma any entrepreneur goes through... he never wants to quit. sometimes even after knowing that He is
gonna fail... that adamant thinking ... somehow I will make it.... without knowing ... which how and ...what how...


That is the mantra of "be prepared to fail"...

Serial entrepreneurs have quit many... why? Because they fail
quickly and quit.


Failing quick is the mantra within BE PREPARED TO FAIL MANTRA.

If you fail quickly and quit... there is a good chance that you will attempt again and next very quickly and start and achieve success quickly. If you fail every 7-8 years and start again...u r done within 3-4 fails before your life comes to an end!!!


Fail quick...get up back...start again...fail quick...start again...fail quick...start again...succeed. then start and succeed....then start and succeed...Now you know how to succeed...

But alas there is this Oxymoron say from the past...
"Early bird gets the worm" and
"Success comes to one who waits"...

This mantra of fail quickly combines this two... Start EARLY
and wait...if you can sense you will fail...then fail quickly and go and wait where
you get the worms.

Failing quick in business...

Is there a time limit before we say a start up is going to bite the
dust?


I had run a company earlier... during that time one of the
GUJJU (gujarat fellow told that 1000-days). I donno how far
it is true (because when i asked one more gujju he rejected
it).

He said we wait for a fellow to make some profit until 1000-days around
3-years if he still struggling...then that means he is very
positive about what he is doing...but only circumstances does
not support him. So other people in the same business give him
links (not money) for his business so that he can come up.


Is that really a good number? 1000-days for a start-up to make
profit?

I would say yes. It takes about a year to build something good.
and it takes another year (to complete whatever left over) to
make the markte feel that there is something coming from
this company. The company and awareness gets created.

If in the 3-rd year the product is not speaking then there
is something tremendously wrong.

i) product is not good.
ii) product is not accepted by market
iii) Product is way ahead of time
iv) did not value competitor and act
v) the basic business plan needed a revisit 1-year back.
vi) so on and so forth.

So if traditional failing is measured in 1000-days why people tell ... if you want to fail... then fail quick??

There is a famous quote in entreprenuer world is if at all you fail .... fail quick.
We will see why fail quick is important in the next post.

Be prepared to fail

"Be prepared to fail"...

This is one of the quotable quotes for an entrepreneur.

It may sound like an oxymoron. Why should i be prepared
to fail when i building something to lost long. Is that
not absurd? Am i building something to fail? That clearly
says what i am building is wrong...then why should i
build it?


The statistics says that 1% of startup only survive and become
big. Let us say even 5% for an argument shake. Does that
mean 95/100 people start something to fail?

Is that the 95 peoples thinking about starting a business
is wrong?

what does this say?


For a startup to stand and survive and become big there
are multiple stages and multiple environmental challenges.
A startup can fail at any stage because of error or
change in environment. We can never control the environment
and it portraits things at its own will.

So what you have in your hand and control is what you
do and not the environment and the market.
Sometimes,

i) startup fail because they are well ahead of time.
ii) Market demand has changed by the time the startup product comes out.
iii) You may be making X-compenent which fits into A market... but
because of B A-market could have vanished.
iv) Just because your competitor has money and muscle could
crush to non-existence.

and a lot more.

So it is very important for any startup company to envision
failure and learn and change course and fit the market.

MJ mark on earth

Jackson's death came as a big shock to me.

If someone can make a mark on earth with his creation
it is MJ. I believe aliens looking at earth should see an
"MJ" written on it.


I liked Micheal for his music and dance.

During my college days (1980-86) I used to perform Micheal's break-dance
(Indian version of it though) in college cultural program's
(not on stage but within the audience).

I once even danced on a street corner in front of tea stall
for a Tamil number in his style...a big crowd gathered around
that...my friends were clapping. I danced for a whole of
5-minutes.


I once danced on stage with some of the moon-walks of
Micheal during 1991 in cultural program in IITK.

I used to practice his moon-walk for years and got it
to some extent but could never reach.

I liked every song of Micheal and loved some of them.

He is a legend of pop and stage performer... inventor
of moon walk, nice human, creator, ...

For me he is Einstein of Music.

The world is really gonna miss him... and i am one of the billions.

Is memory a gift or curse

I had some thing in my mind yesterday night to blog about. I still
remember i was thinking this is what i will blog about tom'row.

Now when i sit in front of my puter i don't remember what i thought of.


Is memory a gift or a curse?

Lucky we don't remember everything that we see, read,hear.

Kids enjoy their days and every bit of their second of
life because of their in-ability to correlate the memory.
They do remember ... but they have not correlated and
categorized their memory. That is why they could
easily forget the consequence of a deed whether good or
bad and carry on with what they are doing.

Is it not amazing to see your kid call you 'stupid' and
get beaten by you and then the next minute comes back to
you like as if nothing happened...does that mean they
have forgotten the instance...no way. My son still remembers
why i beat him when he called my mom 'evil grandMa'.
But when he looks and plays with me he never remembers that
instant...that instant is just another instant and has
not been still categorized as something special event
and he does not remember that event when he looks at me
... but as a old-dude i remember often that when i look
at my son.

Another great thing about kids is that they don't have a
future...they live on at that moment with little influence
from their past. But as a grown-up we live on our past
and fear of future and miss out the present.

Though i can realize this and write about it...i cannot
be like a kid...living for that moment. So I ask again..

Is memory a gift or a curse?

(hundred and one percent.. i did not think of this topic
yesterday NOR until i started writing...).

lingering on the same thought

I could not think of anything more except for what i did
couple of days back...

Did i make a mistake?

I am still waiting and the client did not reply to my
mail. Is he playing a mental game? OR he is so irritated
that he does not even want to write to me.

What i offered is not that bad a proposal... a software
package which needs 2x3 man years of production when
someone wanted to share the code... i just asked for
9-lacs... less than $20K is that something big that
he gets annoyed or he wants me to get down on my
requirements?

I have few installations as well. We sold the software

ranging from 1800$-3000$ at four different places...of course

through a seller and i got only 500$-1500$.


Will wait for a week and then may be i will ping him.

Was it a mistake?

Did i do a mistake?

Yesterday i blogged about doing a transaction with a buyer... i was happy i could close
the day with do it my way or no way.

I have off loaded my concerns to the payer and he is
keeping silent. I donno whether he is evaluating my
proposal or dropped the entire project.

I am worried now... did my decision to go straight
and transparent is (was) a mistake?

Because it is not only my money... it is stake holders
money that is at stake...if the negotiations went well
and even if i settled for 6-lacs as proposed by them
then i could have paid back at least 70% of the investors
money.

Now I have no choice except to wait. Should i called
for help? Should i asked someone to do the negotiation?

At the end of it... i was worried that they will push
all their developmental work on my head. I can't do justice to them and i can't do
justice to the company i am working now. With that fear only i wanted to
push back so that they will come back little mild and acceptable.


Well ... now there is no going back. I have to wait.

Hard Decision

Hard Decision.


Today I was making a negotiation for selling a software code
I have developed over the past 3-4 years (with programmers).

The talk was going on between the buyer and me for the last
1-month and I finally settled on getting 9-lacs for the
code and hand it over to them. When we finally met 3-days
back the buyer just put a googly around saying the payment
will be made as 30-30-30-10% over a period of 300-days.


I was taken aback...could not say anything at the meeting.
This may be the part of negotiating teams effort ...i never
know. One fellow hook you down on the amount payable and
then suddenly one fellow comes and drops the bomb on
payment schedule saying "it is company policy" and all
that crap.

Probably it is a regular practice in sales team's to do the job like
this. But i was unaware because i was never involved in
money transaction.

Earlier i had bitter experience with
a U.S. customer (Indian settled in U.S.). He never paid
me in time... finally i beat him up and got 10% extra
paid...but all together the payment schedule made the
whole development and my company going for a spin.


This time i did not want to give that a chance. I have
just sent him a mail saying what ever he is talking is
non-sense. Because i am giving him the code at one-shot
and why should he pay me in installment? Will he accept
me delivering the code also in installment?

Though this is an important amount of money (the money
i am thinking of paying back the investors). I can't
afford to loose it... but sometimes nothing is
better than non-sense...for the 9-lacs (he is proposing
7-lacs) you end-up spending your time and money
which worth more than that.


So I took the hard decision either my way (transparent) OR no-way.
Let me see how it goes.

What a Beautiful world

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature
exposed to our method of questioning. (Heisenberg,
Physics and Philosophy, 1963).


What a fantastic statement this is. Have you ever
observed this in real life? Did nature present
itself to the way you look at it. For me it is
many a times....

I remember when i rared doves at the age of 12...i always saw the sky
full of doves flying...I could even identify the groups ...
when i left my interest in raring doves i don't remember seeing
doves on the sky...did they vanish? No.

I remember when i wanted to build air driven small toy car...
the wind was blowing the whole day when i had my car getting
repaired...the wind did not show its face when i had
everything ready.


When i was working in GE and getting multi-lac pergs... I used
to wonder how the maid-servant, auto-wallah and low-end workers
are suffering to get 100Rs/day...

when i started working for 2-lac/annum then i saw how
costly the house rent was... then i saw how costly it
is stay back a day in a AC room... I saw how well to do
people spending lavishly on vacation and staying in resorts.
But i did not see autoworkers suffering...i argued why they
are charging extra when the petrol price when down?

When i started the school software making...everywhere i go
i saw schools... i realized there are 20-schools just around
the place i lived...while traveling in train and bus i saw
schools everywhere....never before i saw so many schools.
Schools were there but i never bothered to look at them...



Mind is a wonderful thing and so the world is... it looks
beautiful the way you look at it...it looks pathatic
the way you look at it... it looks ugly the way you
look at it... it is enjoyable the way you perceive it.

Exploitation is not productivity

Exploitation is not productivity...

What a great sentence.

But How do i produce without exploiting the existing resources?
Produce needs ingredients...can't produce something from the
air...ah...that is also a wrong sentence or comment to make...
am i not exploiting air?

Why do geeks like me like that statement?

I believe the sentence is read as "over exploitation" or
"unwanted exploitation" OR "only exploit".

Is outsourcing is a exploitation?
Yes it is. But does it reduce the productivity? would
say NO. It increases productivity of the outsourcing company. Does not it
exploit the brains of the third world country?


Then why this sentence is so popular? It is a philosophical
statement and not a sentence. How do we produce without
exploiting resources....to produce you need resource/ingredients. Once you
produce the ingredients vanishes....exploited.

There are ways to produce without utilization...like
internet search (google)...but it utilizes or exploits the work done
by millions of people over few decades. To an argument google
can be considered as 'no exploitation product' company. Because
it exploits something available for free and the produce does not
deplete the ingredients. But may not be entirely true.

I may be comfortable with the following statement than the
one quoted above.

"minimize exploitation and maximize Productivity".


How do I minimize exploitation? Well, that is a different
topic all together. I will see whether i can put something
on that topic.

Cheers.

Evil Business ...continued

As i blogged before i wanted to write about this evil business...and so it is here.


Amway -a personal experience.


It was in 1997 when i first went to U.S. on my pos-doctoral
fellowship. Just 2-days after landing in the land-of-oppurtunities
... me and my boss were going around a mall for my landing
purchase.

There was this guy looking like me (hard to find many
Indian and Indian looking guys at that time in Philly) came
to and asked "Are you from Bangladesh"...i said no I am
from India and here on a research.

He said "So glad to meet a person from the subcontinent" and gladly
gave me his phone number and introduced me to his wife.
I was totally taken aback...wow what a wonderful world. People
in U.S. from our sub-continent are so freindly and want to
help each other ...

Once i got my phone connection i promptly called him and gave
him my number. He called me once in a week and ask how am i doing
and how is my research going...i was overwhelmed.

Suddenly one-day he said there is a get together on some
business meeting and he wanted me to attend that...i thought
"OK good i will meet more of Indians and there is a chance i
will meet a nice girl"...i said YES.

He picked me up and took me to some hotel i think it was Ramada Inn...
not sure now....had few drinks and was expecting some dancing
and socializing...but these guys started talking about some
serious business...presentations and gyan on what is
business....

There were some special presentations made on how this company
called Amway has revolutionized the way business is done
by personalized marketing... there were presentations on
how to make money and how much money you have put in and
how it will multiply based on how many people you can drag
and how to drag people (like going around the mall with a
note and pen and meet people etc.,etc.,) .

Till the end of 3-hour meeting no-body told what is that
this company Amway is producing. I was wondering what the
heck is that... but did not open my mouth because i donno
how to get back in that odd-hour (11-pm) to
my apartment so kept silent and really could not munch much
on the topic.

some one dropped me back in my apartment and all through the
way this guy was talking about one of the presenter who
made good American accent english and spoke exactly like a
big American orator....he said he wants to be like him...I said
good and was thinking 'oh this company is about talking and
more talking and more talking'

I said thanks to the guy who dropped me back and went back to
my apartment and could not stop drinking another 2-pecks of
Bacardi rum before i sleep.

After a week i got the phone call from my friend and he
asked me how the meeting was ...i said i did not like it
and i could not get what we are selling... he went on
to make sure i have to attend few more meetings to understand
fully... i said i am not that inclined... but he kept on
insisting me to attend by saying 'after all it is free and
food'...i said 'cool'...now i have
learnt some slang in American way...he said he wanted to
meet me...i said ...'my pleasure'...and asked him to come
to my apartment... i wanted to get prepared....took 3-rounds
of bacardi because it is very hard for me to be harsh in
person...i always believe everyone has every right to do what
he does and what he thinks is right for him... but this one
looked like a evil business to me and wanted to stop him by
giving hard words and stop him from coming to me.
I gave him left and right on what this shit about... he
never came back....

After that during my 2-year stay in Philly...i met couple of
more amway guys....i can smell the way they approach and would
stop them before giving my phone number.

Let me put how this Amway works...it is about you become a part
of the company by buying 200$ worth of things and promise to
make purchases for next few years on monthly or quarterly basis.
What you get is a 1$ worth of thing at 10$....then how do you
make money....you bring in your friends and strangers to do the
same...because they are going to buy 1$ worth for 10$ you get
2$ commission...like that if your bring 20-people then you make
money ...if those 20-people could bring in another 20-each...then
you become the boss of 400 people who will spend 10$ for 1$ and your
income keeps pumping in....What an idea sirji.
This is called evil....even though there is no forcing and all are
volunterly done....it is a kind of trap...and it is evil. It
is cheating...but under the cover of business by selling a $ worth
component at 10$...but the buyer does it voluntarily so legally and
business ethically it is not wrong.

But it is evil...because it does not add any value to the buyer. A business which
does not add any value to the buyer is Evil in some sense.

Will BJP survive the next 5-years?

Will BJP survive?


I have a skeptical feeling that BJP may crack into pieces
by the time the next election come. It may be good for
BJP as well. If someone charismatic starts a sub-BJP
with less hindutuva factor... i beleive this new BJP
will make a big wave.

My thinking goes as follows... next few years of managing the
country will be hard for congress because of the current
global crisis on economy and at the end of five years
it will point to the way congress managed the country.

There goes the oppurtunity for an opponent to pitch in
and take away the thunder. As of now there is only one
national party which can do it...that is BJP.

But my fear is that "Will BJP survive until then? ".


For congress... it was always easy to find the charismatic
figure (Nehru family). But in BJP who is that charismatic
figure who can do the wonder? Wonder without turning
that party into a Hindu-party for Hindu-nation. Hindu
party for Hindu nation will never work.

Because by Hindu it means only the upper caste Hindu and not all
of them. This fear of Upper caste dominated Hindu will
not find its place in India...even ignoring the other
religions.

Well this is old-monk's thinking now. Let me see what
happens in the next four-years.

Why to Blog?

Does it worth Blogging.


Yes it is. But is it about

1) self advertisement?
2) just for the high/low you get from followers comments?
3) Net addiction?

Yes...there is a partial truth in all the above.

I think there is much more to blogging...everything may sound old...but as a new blogger i thought i will write :-) .


I believe blogging is a very good habit and can be looked
upon by urself after few years on what state-of-mind you
were few-years back. It will also gives you a habbit of
illustrating and putting things in a readable format.
When you analyze some topic and put it in writing it gives
you a good vision and understanding of the particular topic and remains
longer in your memory than just reading it.

Think of something you always chat/ramble over a cup of tea or drinks
with freinds and strangers. It vanishes there but a blog
created with the same time spent... remains and would worth
reading back. when reading back you could correct course
on the thinking you made on that particular topic.

Good blogging everyone. OldMonk will keep blogging.

Evil Business Model

Past couple of days i have been commenting on Umair's page about Wonga's business model.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/06/wonga_redux.html

To me it sounds nothing like any business model. Model is something which makes people to follow.

In fact models also have been created for evil . Wonga's
business is one such evil model. Another that I can
think of is "Amway" (will write about a peronal instance
with amway in couple of days). I can't understand how such
business exist.

These are business for desperate people with desperate
minds to get money and transact and get more money. Finally
before they realize they end up in trap.
There are hundred business points to justify why this
business exists...but between evil and good... this should
not exist.

Business is about making money... i agree... but business
should not suck money OR make money from desperate needs
of people...My philosophy of business is as follows (probably
it is spelt out everywhere, anyhow)...

Business is about giving value addition to human life
and make money while doing so.

Let me start

I have been thinking of blogging for a while... considering my irregularity even at work I am skeptical how much will I blog.

Hope will blog when something interesting i wish to write.