Got Patience..??

Today's world is full of people who want to become successful overnight, want to become rich in the shortest amount of time, want fame quickly. May people possess that special talent, that passion to achieve what they desire but quite often they don't have the patience to wait for the right opportunity to strike.  Nowadays people want everything, in that desire they try to force things to go their way or try so unbearably hard which ultimately only leads to frustrations and undesirable results and I have no shame to accept that in a way, I was one of victim of it too for sometimes.

Sometimes the words we use confuse and mislead us. For example, I have often heard my friends saying that he/she  is 'LOSING patience' or not being able to 'FIND the patience' to deal with a situation and I would like to suggest them please Don't get deceived into believing that patience can be lost or found. It is not a commodity. It is a ‘DECISION’. It is a decision to wait. It is a decision to hold on to your dream despite any delays you may have to put up with. Though, I also believe this decision taking capability obviously get built up from Strong Self Belief of your capability and discipline.

Here is one short story which I was been told when I was going through one of such emotions..some of you might have heard this before:

A boy who for years had been told by everyone that he had very little patience was one day found to be praying. 

"O Lord, give me the amount of patience I need; and please better do hurry up about it."

Since then, Every now and then when I found myself getting impatient; I picture myself being that boy and laugh out loud. 

This is yet another example of how to control our so-called "uncontrollable" emotions. By associating a funny story with an undesirable emotion, I give myself an opening - a chance to stop for a moment and look at what I'm doing. And most of the time, I realize that what's getting me all tangled is so insignificant!

I know by now, while reading through this line you must be definitely thinking ‘me being silly about it’!  So be it…but please read on..…because what I realized there is “Understandably, given that strange situation to anyone dealing with me at that point would give me that reaction”. One minute we could be arguing, and about to tear each other apart, and the next I'm laughing. I suppose I would wonder about such a person's state of mental sanity too. But think about it - what better way to break the tension?

How many people get into arguments that literally break up relationships -  over petty stuff! One word leads to another and before they know it, it's ten years later and they have no idea of why they lost touch. If they backtrack, they realize that it all started over something so insignificant that they're too embarrassed to admit or disclose it. 

So, even at the risk of looking ridiculous, the next time that you are about to lose your sovereignty over your mind and your body, remember the boy! And While you're laughing, explain why. The next thing you know, you'll both be laughing, and then -  you'll both be able to really talk and listen.

With patience you can bear up under any adversity and survive any defeat. With patience you can control your destiny and have what you will. Patience is the key to contentment, for you and for those who must live with you. To be brave without patience can kill you. To be ambitious without patience can destroy the most promising of careers. Patience is power. Employ it to stiffen your spirit, sweeten your temper, stifle your anger, bury your envy, subdue your pride, bridle your tongue, restrain your hands, and deliver you whole, in due time, to the life you deserve."   :)

Love your Critics!

In the world of Reviews, Opinions and Critiques, I always found critique is more of beneficiary tool for human being for their advancement on this planet than discouragement. Yes, I am saying so because it’s like of how you perceive and adapt it. I love being with critics and always enjoy keeping them around me as they are the best teachers and motivators for me in my life. I always found that most of the times, they helped me to get the better of me.

                        

Reasons are obvious:

-- Because by criticizing they actually tell you indirectly that yes you have capability of doing that which according to their understanding you just cannot.

-- They always try to make you feel you are at your place because of fluke and now would not stay there any longer…This is the time when I realize okay if you say so..maybe now I need to go one place up above than where I am. Sometimes, this really brings a bit mischievous smile within me and asked me to gear up for another quest.

I do not have great deal of experience but this what I tried most of the times it worked almost all the time for me. It’s not scientific formula to be honest which I follow always but I do believe in it strongly. Hopefully this will help you all in those bad times.

 Don’t react to them immediately but do show up your face right up on their noses. Let your critics know the leader you are. Adopting a “hide in bunker” attitude will only encourage to them. It gives them freedom to unleash their paintbrushes on you however they like — demon, useless, undeserved, or do-nothing attitude person. By showing up you demonstrate that you are not afraid and ready for another quest more positively.

 Take it as you love it. Be open to them and always say that you agree to their disagreements. This help to confuse them and make them realize what is their AIM on saying that. Do they want make you fall from your place or just want to make you uncomfortable or pose you as another BAD fellow.

 Stay calm and Be cool. When people criticize you to your face, breathe deeply. As an opponent's voice rises, lower yours. Speak deliberately and with a sense of calm. The more control you have of your emotions, the stronger you will appear. No one disagree the fact that “The more calm you, the better for you and your brain to speak smartly and strategically”.

 Smile all the time. This demonstrates that you are in control. Smile when appropriate, but never smirk. Don't let them see you sweat, either. Smiling keeps you on a more even keel. Sometimes, this makes them vulnerable to making mistakes by going beyond their limit. Apparently this posture them as Villain in neutral audience.

 Acknowledge your Bad Situation and Timing. Standing up to criticism is an opportunity to admit your own failings. Do this with a sense of sincerity, as you are showing them your positive emotions and passion. Make Neutral Audience realize that you have done what you think is best with the best of your intensions. At the same time, do not be defensive. Act with honest confidence, even when you admit mistakes. Sometimes showing losing some rope on Tug of war might help you to win them all convincingly.

 Never be Aggressive and Criticize gently. The spotlight may be on you, but the heat is also on your critics. When get chance to give it back, do it with a sense of diplomacy. Don’t take on individuals rather show that you are taking this up on you and all. This helps you to reduce their unnecessary importance and kills them inside with the fact that they are nothing for you and you just ignore them as senseless person. While getting in all this, Always make sure that you are not even nearby of taking any revenge feeling which help you focus on yourself for getting better for future than thinking of deteriorating your critiques to dust. It’s also good idea to have a good-natured jibe here or there for you as well as others. It reveals your humanity.

 Leave them wanting more. You must know when to pull shutter on the engagement even though its look like you are winning the debate. You can ruin your well earned good fortune thing by hanging around on stage to finish them all. It’s always great idea to get off stage and let others react on your position which sometimes helps to clear your bad impression and also shows that you are not there win over the world and adds extra sincerity points. This is really very important and I have learned this lesson by hard way in my work environment.



Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)



To be honest, I realized this by observing most of people in my lives, but sorry would not be able to mention any of those names here but at the same time, I will also like to give few names who I follow for similar things likes of Barack Obama, MS Dhoni, AB Vajpayee.



End of all, I would like to underline the fact that one of very famous American lecturer/writer has said it before “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving..” So, I would say if you have critiques then don’t be afraid of them, on top of it love them and keep them with you always because in today’s world they are the ones who drive you from potential to your growth and bring that feeling of satisfaction & adds extra value to your achievements.

Success: Time and Chance along with Good Instincts

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet to bread to wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

                                                ~ Ecclesiastes 9:11

Harold MacMillan

After completing my MBA, I am thinking of this quote for success because be it in Business or elsewhere, is not always the result of brilliant strategy, dazzling tactics, extensive knowledge or general all encompassing ‘talent’ alone. Occasionally it may be but most often it just not. On the other hand it is very seldom for an individual idea or business idea to succeed solely on the back of pure chance either. Business is often unpredictable thing as sometimes most logical and rigorously researched strategies can fall foul of the unexpected and the coincidental. I remember somewhere I read about Britain’s former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once famously said when asked about the factors which influence successful or unsuccessful political careers; “events, dear boy, events.”

Time, chance and business intelligence have certainly influenced many situations. It is interesting to see what roles do intelligence and chance play in Business venture. Consider the following situation: Imagine you are CEO of company that manufactures consumer electric goods and you personally have sanctioned one of the costliest budgets of development of new revolutionary device. You ask one of your best marketing team to investigate the potential uptake of the prototype (through focus groups, random samplings) and the outcome news is no GOOD. Their consider opinion is that the device will not even sell in sufficient numbers by which they can cover the cost of manufacturing & development, partly because device itself was too revolutionary for the current market and partly because you personally (in their view) have fixed the selling price too low. Even the design team set up to develop the product is openly sceptical of its commercial possibilities. On top of all this your wife/huband/partner does not like the gadget one bit and, to add insult to injury, the marketers have sanctioned a name for it that is, in your considered opinion, truly awful (they did this while you were abroad on business and the cost of reversing their decision would now be prohibitive.

So, faced with the above situation, what would you do?

What actual CEO did was to personally authorise a manufacturing run at considerable cost, stick with the relatively low selling price, stick with the name he hated because it was too costly to change it by then, and to go boldly forth! Why? Partly because he and a sixteen year old relative of his loved the gadget to bits and they believed sceptics had it wrong.

Who was the CEO?

Akio Morita (1921-99)

Akio Morita of the Sony Corporation.

And the Gadget?

The Sony Walkman (Morita detested the name ‘Walkman’ he wanted to call it ‘Walking Stereo’- so a bit of good fortune he was away then!)

As we now know, the Sony Walkman went on to become truly global phenomenon that made the company hundreds of millions of dollars. The question worth reflecting upon of course is this – was Morita’s Decision to proceed (completely justified as it turned out) just a lucky throw, or did it have something to do with Business intelligence?

I believe (in this particular instance at least) that it was primarily the latter. Sometimes the number-crunchers and research-nerds get it wrong and battle hardened managers and sixteen year old kid (who was the walkman aimed at after all) get it right.

The principal objection of the walkman nay-Sayers was that people would not be prepared to pay for tape player that did not also record music. But Morita believed that his target audience’s desire to take their music with them wherever they went would outweigh this deficit. He was right. Morita had gut feeling about the walkman, a feeling predicted on years of experience in consumer electronics. His gut feeling told him it was right time for the walkman and he consequently took the chance. So Remember, Always Time and Chance with gut feeling pay of idea perfectly..!! J

WiTricity: one more step of innovation in science..!

Today, the world is full of tech savvy people; every device is getting smaller and portable. Everyone from a kid to an elderly person, uses cell phones, music players etc, and all they want is just these gadgets to be constantly powered up.  So, power has become the utmost basic need of everybody like food & shelter. Miserable but in my research I found few horrifying statistics about the use of batteries. 

Marin Soljacic & his MIT team

In year 2000, the estimated battery waste was almost 19,000 tonnes for general purpose batteries and 113,000 tonnes for automotive batteries only for UK. (out of which only 2% are recycled to use again). The average household uses of batteries itself is 21 per year per house, so one can easily understand how important the power sources are getting every single day. Top of it, the irksome issue is these small batteries cannot store power for much longer time considering constraints like size, weight and other physical parameters. So, how long batteries will be the option to be charged up always....??

Nevertheless, Mr. Marin Soljačić, MIT professor have found the promising means of electricity transfer which is known as WITRICITY which will make people to forget batteries, cable wires & electric towers etc. While working with his MIT group, he devised a simple setup that wirelessly powered a 60-watt light bulb within range of 2 meters by using the concept of magnetic resonance.  In fact, this concept is not completely new to world as in year 1915, Nikola Tesla (Serbian Scientist & Noble Prize winner) had tried similar experiment which unfortunately could not be successful at that time.

How does WiTricity Work..??

Nikola Tesla

But, now the transmission of power without wires is not a theory or a mere possibility, it is now a reality. The electrical energy can be economically transmitted without wires to any terrestrial distance. Many researchers have established in numerous observations, experiments and measurements, qualitative and quantitative. Wireless transmission of electricity has tremendous merits like high transmission integrity and Low Loss (80 – 85% efficient in ideal conditions). This system would reduce the cost of electrical energy used by the consumer and get rid of the landscape of wires, cables, and transmission towers. This technology have no hazard to any animal body due to its Resonance coupling concept which is huge plus point to this type of wireless power transmission. 

Another interesting research done earlier in this year (April 2010) by Steven Hackworth was the best way to utilize this technology for maximum benefits of human society. You can see the diagram showed in left as where we can see direct connection with WiTricty Source can do the miracles with absolutely no waste with always maximum utilization energy. This design will be the great way to serve our highly increasing demand of energy. This not only reduces the cost of solar installation significantly but also helps our all the devices charged up always.

It seems that in coming years this invention is going to have tremendous economic impact and growth to human society and many countries will benefit from this service. Monthly electric utility bills from old-fashioned, fossil-fuelled, lossprone electrified wire-grid delivery services will be optional, much like “Cable TV” of today. ;)

(If you want more detailed information of this technology, please visit the below WiTricity Prezi presentation)

WiTricity on Prezi

Get better or get beaten..!!

But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward..!! (Rocky) Its how much pain you can take to learn & prepare yourself to go that extra mile further to be in those elite cum legend group of people. So, keep moving forward..irrespective what is happening with you while doing it and that’s how winning is done.

I can tell you from my own experience (although it's not great, but still) that things NEVER EVER always go according to plan. 80% of the goals you set and plans you make will never go the way you want. Things will screw up and obstacles will appear that will knock you down. It’s all part of the game of life. 

Whenever we see people achieve great things, it is easy to think that they had lesser problems and lesser obstacles than we have and then that their brilliance, luck or talent gave them super human abilities to sail through life easily. That everything always goes according to plan.

No..I have seen & found that..not only in my life but in others too. especially, there were many times in my life when I did get hit hard and felt that I had problems I could never solve. There were times when I felt that life was unfair and too painful to live. What kept me going forward was that I knew that no matter how bad, every problem will not last forever. Every recession will end. Dawn always breaks after the darkest hour. It was this belief that allowed me to keep getting up and now I have started enjoying it more and more. :)

I would like to share two very interesting and demonstrative real stories here from which I learnt alot. First one is about my ideal Sachin Tendulkar. In the world of cricket, people thinks that this guy is just genius and not only play strokes which are in book but also made few of his own patents. Most of the people know him because of his number of centuries and records but let me tell you that this guy did not become a cricketer by born directly. He shrugged and prepared himself that hard way where he can break any nuts with his bat for all day long. At the age of 14, Sachin played for 55 days without a break, his schedule was like 2 hours practice, then a game whole day then again 2 hours net practice. He did that consecutively for 55 days, many times he even fell down asleep on dining table itself. He used to play cricket almost more than 12 hours a day which made him so good that he can score on any pitch and against any damn bowler.

Now also, if you see him every time he fails and his critics try to run over him, he never gives up. He always bounce back strongly and clear his critics doubts again & again..& again..~~! he is doing this since last more than 21 years now. He is still having same attitude, passion and learning keenness to get over again for this game.

Another story, I would like to share with you all is about Honda Motor Corporation, one of the most successful automakers from Japan. Again what made Honda a success was that its founder, Soichiro Honda was able to take the hardest hits and still get up and move forward.

In 1938, while Soichiro was still in school, when he started a workshop to develop the piston ring that he hoped he could sell to Toyota. He worked 7 days a week, even sleeping in his workshop at times. When money ran out with no success, he pawned his wife’s jewelry for working capital.

Finally, came the day he completed his piston ring and was able to sell it to Toyota. However, he was told that the rings did not meet their standards! Soichiro went back to school for 2 years to improve his invention only to suffer ridicule when the engineers saw his design.

Soichiro Honda

He refused to quit. After two more years of struggle and improvement, he successful won the contract with Toyota. He needed to build a factory to supply Toyota. Unfortunately, his timing was bad. At this time, the Japanese government was gearing up for war and needed all the concrete for the war effort, so he could not get the concrete necessary to build his factory. Instead of giving up, he invented a new concrete-making process that enabled him to build the factory. With the factory now built, he was ready for production, but again, his luck was bad. His factory was bombed twice by American war planes and steel became unavailable, too. Instead of giving up, he started collecting surplus gasoline cans discarded by US fighters “Gifts from President Truman,” he called them, which became the new raw materials for his rebuilt manufacturing process. Again, his timing was bad. An earthquake hit and his factory was destroyed the third time.

After the war, an extreme gasoline shortage forced people to walk or use bicycles. Soichiro saw this opportunity and built a tiny engine and attached it to his bicycle. His neighbors wanted one, and although he tried, materials could not be found and he was unable to supply the demand. He also didn’t have the money to build another factory to make these ‘motorbikes’.

He still didn’t quit. He wrote letters to 18,000 bicycles shop owners and asked them to pay him in advance so he could build his factory to sell them his newly invented motorbikes. Unfortunately, the first models were too bulky to work well, so he continued to develop and adapt, until finally, ‘The Super Cub’ became a success and took Japan by storm. With success in Japan, Honda began exporting his bicycle engines to Europe and America.

This was how the Honda Motor Corporation was formed. Was that the end of his problems? Nope! As he ran Honda, it went into lots of financial problems. Honda also went nearly bankrupt for five times, only to be turned around just in time. Everytime he took a hit, Soichiro would just get up, learn from his mistakes and keep moving forward.

Today, Honda Corporation employs over 100,000 people in the USA and Japan, and is one of the world’s largest automobile companies. Honda’s excellent engineering and clever marketing even resulted in Honda motorcycles out-selling Triumph and Harley-Davidson in their respective home markets.

So, the greater the success you want in life, the bigger the hits you got to be willing to take. There is a price for everything..!!  However big talent you have, it does not matter..what matters on this earth is that attitude which tells you however worst the situation is, just accept it and keep moving forward, and it will make sure that you reach there right at the top. :)

I truly believe that to prove your worth as GOLD one needs to pass the test of furnace. However more the pain you get now, always consider that it is preparing you for your better future. :)

Would you believe if I say Wind Mills can have adverse effects on climate..??

I personally believe that whenever human being tries to intervene in any of natural process is due for major disaster. May it be then drilling earth for natural resources, obstacle to wind, building construction in sea? 

Today, many of us understand the effect of carbon emissions on climate and believe solution of that could be something like Wind energy, solar energy etc. which we believe generate energy without any climate change impact. All in all, the whole world is desperately trying to seek the substitute energy resources to avoid end of the world. 

In this process, did we all ever notice that how much extra precautionary we need to be here before choosing any particular energy source? Yes, we need to think very carefully about these things on long term basis. Recently, I come across one of the research from MIT where Dr. Prin (TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science) and Wang (Principal Research Analysts) who have made strong argument that Wind energy is not completely safe and can have adverse effect on climate in long run when U.S. Department of Energy is planning to account 20% of nation’s electricity supply by wind power in 2030. Although, AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) estimates currently only 2% of electricity is generated from wind turbines. 

Currently, 6% of the world’s total energy comes from nuclear reactors; while fossil fuels, a major contributor to global warming, provide approximately 85 percent, according to IEA (International Energy Agency). At the same time, in above pictures we can see that others* (includes Geothermal, Wind & Solar energy) is only 0.7% of total energy which is very much minimal.  Although, this proportion is expected to grow in coming years as people are betting heavily on Wind energy as it’s cheaper as well than other such resources. 

Prinn cautioned against interpreting the study as an argument against wind power, urging that it be used to guide future research that explores the downsides of large-scale wind power before significant resources are invested to build vast wind farms. “We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”

But a new MIT analysis about wind power says that millions of wind turbines would need to be installed across vast stretches of land and ocean to generate wind power to reach expected global scale. Such a massive deployment could indeed impact the climate as well as wind, they found, though not necessarily with the desired outcome.

In their land analysis, they simulated the effects of wind farms by using data about how objects similar to turbines, such as buildings, hills and clumps of trees, affect surface “roughness,” or friction that can disturb wind flow. After adding this data to the model, the researchers observed that the surface air temperature over the wind farm regions increased by about one degree Celsius, which averages out to an increase of .15 degrees Celsius over the entire global surface.

The wind turbines on land reduced wind speed, particularly on the downwind side of the wind farms, which reduced the strength of the turbulent motion and horizontal heat transport processes that move heat away from the Earth’s surface. This resulted in less heat being transported to the upper parts of the atmosphere, as well as to other regions farther away from the wind farms.

In addition to changes in temperatures and surface heat fluxes, they also observed changes in large-scale precipitation, particularly at the mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Although these changes exceeded 10 percent in some areas, the global total changes were not very large, according to Prinn and Wang. 

Although Prinn and Wang believe their results for the land-based wind farms are robust, Wang called their analysis a “proof-of-concept” study that requires additional theoretical and modeling work, as well as field experiments for complete verification. 

Now looking at this picture, are we all 100% sure that Wind resource is really safe enough and will not cause any problem to climate even if they grow in numbers like other resources..?? I seriously doubt..!

References:
Prinn & Wang (2010). Potential climatic impacts and reliability of very large-scale wind farm. Journal of the European Geosciences Union , 10, 2053-2061.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2053/2010/acp-10-2053-2010.html
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2010/key_stats_2010.pdf

                      

Once Again Technology: Medicine or Poison..??

As I am doing an MBA and part of that curriculum, we have a guest lecture on every Thursday afternoon. Last week, we had similar lecture where I got chance to meet this lecturer who is marketing and commercial director of one of the printing organization in UK. Thus, he made us come across one of the real time and very interesting case study of business where I felt like that somebody has stood up right up and asked me do you think you can find answer for everything then try to answer this one..??

Background of person: He works in Printing Industry where his organization just prints the books for top class publishing houses; which also includes distribution of these books to retailers or customers.They have several firm and big clients like Bloomsbury Publishing (Harry Potter Publisher), Penguin Publishing

Question: If you become a board of member of one of such printing company and company asks you to draw the strategy for next 10-20 years. What you will do? (Except selling)

I understood the concern and did try to answer it somewhat but honestly speaking even I am not satisfied with my own answer. So, I have decided to put forward the same question in front of you. I will be pleased if you have anything to share or answer on this.

For this, I had a deep look on their current strategy where I found they actually have only one competitor in current market but they have hell lot of problems coming over in future given as follows: 

1. Digital printing technology (they have adapted this one now)

2. EBooks conversion from Physical books

3. Increasing love fever towards IPADS.

4. Continuous innovation in technology which are removing

5. Top class book maker somebody like Oxford Dictionary also stopped printing of books and asking people to subscribe online or have it in electronic format. Following the trend.

6. Social awareness towards nature adding fuel to it by saying stops the use of paper.

7. Adaption to climate changes policies and regulations

And so many..such problems has suddenly piled up against this SME scale businesses. Did anybody bother thinking any future for these people? Is government is the final answer for this question? The company, I am talking about is having more than 700 employees working hard to make produce best seller novels, best literature and all kind of books. Many of them earn all the joy and hand-to-mouth for their families from this organization only.

But as I mentioned earlier interestingly here in this case this company do see the possible threat upcoming for them but they don’t know how to answer them or may be don’t know what shall they consider because of these uncertainties or changes like if IPAD fever will increase or people will prefer having physical book to read for more reading satisfaction.  Frankly saying nobody knows which way the time and people will shift and hence what should be the risk strategy now or how long should they execute this current business? In short, how long they should keep producing books and does this upcoming new technology medicine or poison for their company?  Big Questions to answer..aren’t they..?

Perhaps, all I can say now is that only time can give the best answer for these questions.

A Genius who is creating a new world of Information Technology

Today when the companies are trying harder and harder to reduce the size of their hardware and the world is getting crazy behind those smallest sizes of hardware like micro, nano or pico or more. They are actually forgetting a thing which is a human touch and its invaluable than any damn small size or compactable hardware machine. In this race, people are also losing the focus that we are fond of information and not any kind of beautiful gadget or hardware. Any such technology that brings us the information which will be effective as well as easier to understand, we will quickly take it. So may it be machine or a simple physical touch use device.

I feel on this planet, the only thing which can be easy, comfortable, compactable and user friendly is device which will recognize a human touch. So, it does not matter how small you make our personal devices if you are not diminishing the hardware itself.

After seeing past 2-3 decades of computing hardware, first time I saw somebody who actually stood apart from all such races and the flow of world. His Name is Pranav Mistry. He is currently one of the youngest and top most scientists in the world. He has produced a simplest form of digital touch model which is known as Sixth Sense device, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.In this video, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- includes intelligent sticky notes, Quickies, that can be searched and can send reminders; a pen that draws in 3D; and TaPuMa, a tangible public map that can act as Google of physical world.  This also evolves a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop."

Pranav Mistry is a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT's Media Lab. Before his studies at MIT, he worked with Microsoft as a UX researcher; he's a graduate of IIT. Mistry is passionate about integrating the digital informational experience with our real-world interactions. His research interests also include Gestural and Tangible Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, AI, Machine Vision, Collective Intelligence and Robotics.

(video is been taken from TED.com)

Here, I am discussing the above video which showed you the trailer of the technology of future generation which neither need any mobile box size hardware to carry in hand nor any desktop or laptop size machines for our personal work. We can simply do things with our sixth sense. Pranav Mistry is the inventor of that SixthSense.

Then the best part which made me fan of him is his attitude of spreading his innovation for mankind. The Q&A in this video itself will tell you about his greatness.  As per my knowledge, very very seldom scientist open their inventions to masses where he is not only giving this technology to common people but also providing open-source software behind SixthSense, to open all its possibilities to all. J

When I saw this video it brought few tears of pride in my eyes. He, so much ease explains almost everything, I only hope his innovations are NOT used by greedy to make money but by people to HELP others and that’s what are the intentions of Pranav. He is truly asset to mankind. I found his work simply amazing. Now, I am really a fond of his new sensational technology, and all I can wish now if I could meet and work with him some day.J

Incredible India..!!

 National Anthem of India

Composed by Rabindranath Tagore, the song Jana Gana Mana was first sung on December 27, 1911 at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. On January 24, 1950, the Constituent Assembly adopted the song as the National Anthem of India.The complete song consists of five stanzas. The first stanza comprises the full version of the National Anthem.

English version

National Song of India

Composed by Bankim Chandra, this song appears in the Bengali novel Anand Math.  The English translation of Vande Mataram rendered by Shree Aurobindo, is considered to be the "official" and best.  The first stanza of this song has been given the status of our national song.

Sanskrit Version                 Translated            English Version

                    

Incredible India..!!

Jai Hind..!!

Why to be Zombie when you have Prezi..!!

In my MBA, we have two live business consultancy projects to do as a part of our curriculum for which we worked almost more than 6 months and then after all that sleepless nights and hardcore work, time come up to present our final findings about that project.

For me, It was my first real time business consultancy presentation experience, and of course I wanted to do something special and different to win over my clients and supervisor quickly. Very enthusiastically I turned to PowerPoint to enrol good animated stuff to my presentation but It was really too much of work and was still showing no different values added to it. However, I wanted to make simple presentation with little tickle for my audience feel that little “Woooohh...!”

Honestly speaking, I do understand that winning audience is many times mainly depend on the presenter rather than anything else but I also feel that to keep that interest going for long time presenter need to have something for audience to look at. That’s when, PowerPoint came in picture and soon became very common too. Nowadays, if you see people put best of the information in their PowerPoint presentation, but audience doesn’t even look at it and goes absolutely dead. The sole reason for this is PowerPoint presentations paralyze the audience, make them fell asleep while the rubbish presenter speaks sotto voce (Italian - Under Voice) on stage reading the speech word-for-all-stumbling-words. After all this then, there is no room left for someone who is poor presenter. Now only one thing can poor presenter make survive is the tool and technique which he used to present his idea and make that zombie speaker stand out, and a poor idea shine. 

Having thought of all this in my mind I decided to find something very simple to make and very attractive to look at. Since then, I started doing Internet research to find something new which can be different, creative, innovative, and eye catchy and most important keeps the audience engaged. After having look at few such ideas I came across PREZI.com and the moment I saw it I decided Yes!! This is what I want for my final presentation. Then, I convinced my team and started working on it.

Initially, I found its bit weird and vague but later I realized that’s actually it’s strength. It was very easy to learn and understand. The feature I loved most in Prezi was simplicity in presenting one’s idea, Prezi allows the speaker to encourage a dialogue, and visualize ideas as if you were drawing a mind map for your audience and keep their interest in presentation than creating linear line of slides. This feature adds huge plus point because you can refer all slides or each slide to other whenever you want without making audience confused from one slide to another.

If you want to have demo for this please have a look on below link for sample presentation, where one can just start making presentation like Mind Map and present exactly the same way, with no sequential slide no structure, nothing. Just start putting your ideas the way you want, connect them and just present them. 

http://prezi.com/kh8oftmvbuxk/seven-wonders-of-the-ancient-world/

So, I think it’s time for me, you and all of us to move forward from PowerPoint to something else to be better presenter or at least try and not to be a presenter who is walking on stage in front of dead audience.

Smart Nano Strategy..!!

Last week, I was in strategy class of my MBA where we were assigned the task to find out the strategy of different automobile companies. While working on that, I realized that there is huge competition going on to be at that top spot in Automobile Industry. This caused continuous stimulating innovation in automobile engineering like speed, comfort, automation, safety, quality, and performance etc. There was so much going for each automobile company where I felt like it’s next impossible for new entrant to survive in this business.

People is striving so hard to gain competitive advantage on each other where they have actually forget that they are doing this businesses to make money for their stake holders and not to be fastest or bestest(another superlative of my Best) in world and I believe that’s one of the reason economical and financial power is shifting from west to East. Here is the example which will illustrate you why is so:

When the whole World is getting crazy behind to make most luxurious, fastest and costliest CAR, TATA was launching the only cheapest car in the world. Sounds strange, isn’t it..??

But, hold on point here is not about making car, point here is making business and earning profits and driving economy. When TATA decided to make NANO as one of smallest and cheapest family car, the whole automobile industry had laugh and forgot about it but I believe Ratan Tata knew exactly what he was doing and hence he still persisted to manufacture NANO. When this idea was launched in India, many people thought neither we have enough infrastructures nor gas where you can allow another almost 10 million people to drive a car. So, they decided to stop this plan. Yes, of course their vision was absolutely right and exactly same thing happened when they rebelled against this massive company and they got, what they wanted. It was quite obvious when you get car for just mere 1300 Pound, then any middle class person can afford to have a car and that too in market of 1.20 billion populations out of which more than 70% people fall under middle class. TATA had got huge customer base, but he had been asked to STOP at this moment. 

Now, it was challenge time for TATA to show some extra ordinary sense and business skills to run this project. After a while, TATA management come up with the strategy where they will have their all five fingers in butter. J

TATA decided to sell limited number of cars as government permits and so for first lot they allowed 100000 cars. This allowed them to make exact given number cars, and in a way it actually helped them to manage their supply chain better than before. TATA received 206,000 bookings for their car where they asked customer to keep deposit of at least Rs. 70,000/- because of such a massive demand then within next 4-6 months they pulled out lucky winners from the draw of 2 lac people. After this, they declared the delivery period of each lucky winner’s car which was after 6-8 months. Now, if you look at this business segment carefully, you will realize that around more than 200 thousand people are putting deposits for this car which made huge amount of cash money in the account of TATA Nano where they get to use the whole money for at least next one year without any interest..huge win..!! Later after 6-8 months, they will only return the money of people who has not got car but just remained as invested participants in their draw, whereas people who were lucky to have car paid its down payment almost a year in advance. This “lottery draw” strategy for massive demand actually helped them to brand this car as “The People’s Car”. So, basically TATA Nano got better control over business, huge brand value, no competitors, small investment, huge unstoppable after sell service business and top of it they made a place in the heart of millions by saying “it was the dream of middle class people to have car which we have successfully fulfilled.” Mind this because “Middle Class” is the spinal cord of our country of 1.20 billion people.

Now, after looking at such a successful and huge profitable business, TATA wants to move this style in Bangladesh, Sri lanka and African countries where TATA will surely going to get huge business not because its most luxurious, hi-tech and fastest car but because it’s cheapest..!! J

References:

http://autos.maxabout.com/cvid0000548/tata_jeh_1_lakh_rupee_car_petrol.aspx

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Drives/Search-Results/First-drives/Tata-Nano-CAR-review-first-riding-impressions/

http://www.gaadi.com/review-Tata-Nano-2859

http://www.tatanano.org/

http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/index.php?searchword=how+many+customers+registered+for+NANO&option=com_search&Itemid=