Masked

Whether you like it or not, masks are going to be an important accessory for the next several months (hopefully not years!). It's the new normal and in Singapore it has been mandatory to wear a mask if you step out of your house for the last 3 months.

I have already felt three inconveniences with wearing masks and here they are listed in no particular order:

1. If you wear spectacles, masks fog them up - Yeah, I tried a lot of internet remedies so far, and nothing seems to work. This is the most annoying part of wearing a mask - I can't see properly when I breathe!
   
2. You end up smelling your own breath - This is a minor annoyance. But I guess it's good in a way. Reminds you to brush and mouthwash regularly. I have experienced this before on red-eye flights.
3. You can't read people's lips - I find this annoying. Now that I can't see people's lips, I realize that I have been seeing people's lips to interpret what they are talking when I meet them face to face. Last several conversations, I have difficulty understanding (especially if the person is new and his/ her accent is not something that I am used to before).
   

And no list is complete if you don't do both pros and cons. So here are some of the advantages I foresee of wearing masks:

1. Masks reduce the spread of the virus - Well that's the most freaking obvious reason why everyone should be wearing masks in this pandemic. I am amused/ worried and downright angry that we are debating whether we should wear masks now!
   
2. Face recognition software will have to now play catch-up (a-bit) - If you have not been living under a rock, you must have realized by now that facial recognition software is amazingly accurate. Just try Google photos for a few days, and you will realize. If Google is this great, the big-brother cameras watching you all the time on the street, must be 100x more intelligent and recognizing your faces and tracking you. I hope with the masks, the facial recognition software will need to be tweaked a bit, and so I think we might have a few months of anonymity on the street before they catch-up at recognizing us on the street again.
   
3. Finally I have a fashion accessory for my face - My favorite clothing brand is making masks. So are a lot of high-fashion brands. It's a matter of weeks before which we all will start wearing designer masks and make a statement, just like how we currently make statements with our clothes, shoes and watches.
   

5 Tips for Remote Teams

The whole internet and also my workspace seems to be freaking out about working remotely and working from home. It has been 2+ months now that most of us are locked up at home and working remotely. Having an Asia-Pacific wide work role, I just realized that I have always worked remotely with geographically dispersed teams and other than the fact that I am spending a lot more time physically at home, nothing really has changed work-wise. My workload has of course increased in the pandemic, but I don't think there is any drop in me and my team's work efficiency.

I believe you must have already read a lot of articles by now about leading remote teams, so here is my list for you:

1. Communicate a lot more and a lot often - Unlike when you are sitting next to each other in the same office, casual conversations do not happen remotely. So make sure you as a manager make it a point to talk to your team much more often and over-communicate.
2. Do video calls - While this sounds creepy, our brain is still wired to interpret other people's emotions by looking at their faces when they are speaking. It is bit of an effort for some people as they have to "get dressed" and be "presentable" but this is the single most important thing to build rapport!
3. Use shared drives, shared folders and all the tools available to collaborate - Email is old school. While email is important, a lot of collaborative tools make it easy for multiple people to collaborate and work simultaneously on software, documents, presentations etc. Use them everywhere!
4. Track progress and items through a central repository - Trello is my tool of choice to track items that my team is working on. Choose yours, and use it de facto for all deliverables!
   
5. Do not expect people to be always online - I think this is a golden rule for building trust. Let your team work in hours that are most comfortable to them. There is no point in making them respond to emails/ instant messages instantly. Everyone is responsible and setting such unreasonable expectations just makes people more stressed and distracted.
   

Time-boxing

If you know me long enough, you know that I am a big fan of To-Do lists. To-Do lists have been a part of my professional and personal life for as long as I remember. For team-work and where I have to coordinate with several people, I love Trello. Its Kan-ban like interface is nifty for tracking status and driving things to completion. However, lately I have realized that To-Do lists lack the "time required" component and that puts the tasks that take longer to a big disadvantage. In other words - on my to-do list a 2 minute task and a 2 hour task both occupy 1 line each. And my monkey brain always chooses to complete all the smaller tasks (to get my dopamine kicks) in the process pushing my big ticket tasks for "later" (Euphemism for "never").

I was researching a bit about this problem on the internet when I had my A-ha moment. (Trust me, if you have any kind of problem ever in your life, someone else somewhere has had that problem before, solved it and documented it somewhere on the internet for you. All you have to do is - search for it!). So the magic bullet to complement your To-Do lists is - Time-boxing. 

Time-boxing is just a sophisticated way of doing these 3 things:

1. Assign a priority value to every item on your to-do list
2. Estimate time required to do every item on your to-do list
3. Assign that item on your calendar for a specific time-slot based on the time you estimated in (2) above

So a simple list of 5 Tasks on your To-Do List after Time-boxing would look something like this on your calendar:

Its of-course much more difficult than just creating a To-Do List. But it gives you an idea of the finite time you really have and helps you prioritize your work for the day/ week or a given time period. Also, when you start estimating the time (or effort) required to complete a task, you identify which tasks are actually projects that need to be accomplished and work towards breaking them down into smaller manageable tasks that can be done over a period of time!

My Movie Choices

Long term readers of my blog know that I am heavily inclined towards minimalism. The philosophical me thinks that this endeavor to constantly reduce things in my life is what has kept me sane (so far). Reducing things also boils down to constantly downsizing options. I like my life where I don't have to choose much. This however is much difficult than what it seems.

Everyday (for me) is a constant struggle amongst numerous choices. Whether it is choosing what to eat, which movie to see, which series to start watching, which clothes to wear, where to go, the average consumer has a plethora of choices. Anyway, over a period of time, I have learnt how to restrict my choices, and limit the decision making process that I have to go through.

This blog however is specifically about - how I chose which movies to watch. Well, before I start, I need to give you some context. The only place I watch movies these days is either on a long haul flight or on Netflix. We don't have channel-subscribed television at home anymore. After struggling several years on making movie choices, I boiled down to choosing my entertainment based on the actors I like. As of this writing, here are my favorite Hollywood actors (in no particular order):

• Tom Hanks
• Jake Gyllenhall
• Christian Bale
• Keanu Reeves

This is besides the fact that I watch all Quentin Tarantino movies. But he doesn't make that many movies for me to go choose to watch them on a flight (I guess, I have already watched most of them, and the ones I haven't, aren't available on Netflix or on flights!). So if I have to see a movie, I just go through the list and search for the ones in which one of these actors are present. This has led to me seeing a bunch of weird, dark and psychological thrillers. I won't say I particularly liked them, but I feel like I have already had my fair share of demented movies. I think other than Tom Hanks, all the other actors listed above, have made some serious "art" films. The list of weird movies that I saw in the last few months because of these actors (again in no particular order):

• Siberia (Keanu) - Can't believe I saw it - if not for Keanu!
• John Wick (Keanu) - The only senseless action movie I ever liked - I am waiting for part 3
• Night Crawler (Jake) - Creepy, Jake is awesome!
• Demolition (Jake) - Weird, emotional - Jake is awesome!
• Nocturnal Animals (Jake) - Dark, emotional - Jake is awesome!
• American Psycho (Christian) - Weird, Psycho - Can't believe I saw it!
• Vice (Christian) - Awesome, loved it!
• American Hustle (Christian) - Awesome, loved it!

I have thus concluded that either my choice of actors are artsy or they just happen to be the choice for artsy films! Anyway for the superhero lovers out there, Jake is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe as "Mysterio". So now you gonna get a taste of him too :) !!

Live Aid 1985

I managed to see Bohemian Rhapsody (movie) in the theater a few weeks ago. I loved it. I know they have taken some artistic freedom to re-interpret Freddie's life story and make it more dramatic. Well, it's not a documentary, so I guess I am fine with it.

Highlight of the movie (for me) was the Live Aid concert that they did in 1985. The actor's performance is amazing at impersonating Freddie. Live Aid happened when I was very young (toddler+) and though I have occasionally seen songs here and there from the concert, this is the first time I made an effort to watch most of Live Aid (Thank you YouTube).

If you are from my generation, you will love (understatement) the Live Aid concert. It features some of the biggest names in music that we grew up with. If you have a year end break and have nothing to do, stop surfing the internet and go see the Live Aid concert now. It's well worth the watch.

Being a big fan of U2, Dire Straits, Eric Clapton and Queen I would like to share some videos here if you are too lazy to click and go to YouTube.

 

U2 - Bad (Live Aid)

 

Dire Straits/ Sting - Money for Nothing (Live Aid)

 

Eric Clapton - Layla (Live Aid)

And the ultimate ....

 

Queen

26 reasons why we procrastinate and how to solve it

So, I am the self-proclaimed God of procrastination. I have progressively struggled with disciplining myself. When I say I procrastinate, I do it habitually, constantly and consistently. From simple things like - sleeping on time, to complex things like working on assignments at the last minute or trying to lose weight and giving up, I have mostly never ever been able to achieve my long term or abstract goals.

So I was pleasantly surprised a few days ago when I came across this article on the "Psychology and causes of procrastination". It's a long read, but definitely worth your time if you are bothered by procrastination like I am. To provide a gist (and for my own benefit) the article provides 26 reasons why we procrastinate:

1. Abstract Goals
2. Goals that are too distant
3. A focus on future options
4. Overestimating future abilities
5. Being disconnected from the future-self
6. Indecisiveness
7. Feeling overwhelmed
8. Anxiety
9. Task aversion
10. Perfectionism
11. Fear of evaluation and negative feedback
12. Fear of failure
13. Self-handicapping
14. Self-sabotage
15. A perceived lack of control
16. Depression
17. Lack of motivation
18. Lack of energy
19. Low conscientiousness
20. Lack of perseverance
21. Laziness
22. Impulsivity
23. Preference for appealing tasks
24. Distractability
25. Sensation seeking
26. Rebellion

The same website, followed up with another long article on "How to stop procrastination". I think that's an equally interesting and useful read.

The super short version (again reproduced verbatim from the article):

1. Write down your goals, and make sure that they’re clearly defined, possible to accomplish, and significant enough to allow you to achieve meaningful progress.
2. Figure out when, how, and why you procrastinate, by examining situations where your tendency to postpone things is preventing you from achieving your goals.
3. Create a plan of action based on relevant anti-procrastination techniques, while taking into account both your goals as well as the nature of your procrastination.
4. Implement your plan and monitor your progress, while making sure to refine your approach by figuring out which techniques work for you and how you can implement them most effectively.

And finally, before I end, I also came across this video of a graduating Harvard Law Student - Pete Davis about "the defining characteristic of our (his) generation" which brilliantly sums up some of the reasons we procrastinate ( I believe this video is a summation of 6. Indecisiveness and 24. Distractability - based on my new understanding of procrastination :) ).

Guide to a good sleep onboard

Most of my adult airline travel life has been spent on uncomfortable economy or budget class seats trying to catch a few winks before I get sucked into the dreaded customer meetings or work on the other side. Having worked in not-so-well-to-do companies, I have never had the luxury of traveling a day in advance to recuperate or travel anything better than the "cheapest seat on the cheapest possible airline at the last available minute to the destination".

Anyway, all this misery has taught me that it is vital to be able to sleep on an airplane. The worst I can do on the other side of my journey is doze off in an important meeting or presentation. Over the period of last several years, I have slowly and steadily improvised and figured out ways to catch up on those precious winks. While many well-to-do business travelers insist on dressing up while traveling, I am completely against it. Formal clothes aren't comfortable enough to sleep on an economy or lower class seat. If you insist on dressing up for your journey, I am mighty sure you are the upper class snob. Period.

So how do you get the precious sleep? Here is Girish's guide to airline sleeping:

1. Dress as comfortably as possible. As a guy, I have gone down to wearing extremely comfortable lounge pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie (or sweater).
2. No accessories, no wallets, even specs go into the cabin baggage. Wear removable shoes with socks.
3. Take a window seat so that you are not obligated to get up to let go off any passengers for their bio-breaks. You go in there and stay there till you have to get up. No one else can bother you.
4. Wear a balaclava or a knit cap on your head such that it can be pulled down to cover your eyes and ears when sleeping. Not only does it help you to keep warm but it also forces you to sleep (you can't open your eyes if the cap's fabric is on them).
5. Carry a medical face-mask to cover your nose and mouth. Not only does it provide some level of protection from the perennial germs lurking in the aircraft, but also it helps you to sleep (by not drying up your mouth and face).
6. Finally, the only thing you do once you get inside the airplane is - sleep. That's it. Wear your seat belt and sleep. No reading magazines, no watching television, no chit-chatting with neighbors. And no caffeine since 2 hours before your flight. Don't wait for the flight to taxi/ take-off/ announce random weather news or duty-free items. When food shall be served, the stewards will wake you up.

But if you travel higher classes, kindly ignore my advise and enjoy your flight. Good night. 

Different perspectives

One of the coolest things with my current Television channel subscription is – I get access to news channels from various countries. Besides the local news channel (CNA – Channel News Asia), I have access to the following:

1. Sky News – UK
2. CCTV News – China
3. NHK World TV – Japan
4. France 24 – France
5. Deutsche Welle – Germany
6. Russia Today – Russia
7. FOX News Channel – USA
8. CNN International
9. HLN – USA
10. Bloomberg Television
11. CNBC Asia
12. Times Now – India

The cool part of having such access is – for contentious international topics, I get to see the viewpoint of multiple parties. And that’s where it really changes your perspective about international news. I have learnt to be more sceptical, and I tend to no longer take news at its face value.

For e.g. – The way the disputes in Ukraine or the conflict in the Middle-east are covered by American news channels are far different than the way they are covered by Russia Today. Or the Asian border disputes as covered by CCTV as compared to NHK are vastly different. You get to really listen to everyone’s point of view and makes you more tolerant.

I think for everyone to have a peaceful co-existence it is important that news from different regions (or from neighbouring countries) is broadcast.

Guide to boarding a flight

Note - This is like a dummies’ guide to navigate an airport to board a plane. For everyone of you this is completely redundant and boring. Please skip reading this post. I am putting it up cause I promised someone I would do this guide.

In this blog post we will go through boarding a random aircraft (UA049) at Mumbai International Airport (CSIA) to go to Newark.

Any Airport can be divided into the following parts (for passengers):

1. Terminal
2. Arrival
3. Departure
4. Departure Door
5. Check-in Zone
6. Check-in Counter
7. Security
8. Immigration
9. Boarding Gate

Terminal - The Mumbai Airport as of 2015 has only one terminal T2. So there is nothing to worry about going to the wrong terminal anymore. The Taxi driver should take you to T2 and to the “Departure area” if you ask him to take you to the international airport. Departures are generally on the higher floor (so the taxi takes a bridge and drops you off).

Departure Door - In Mumbai, Departure taxi drop-off area has several doors (each door for a set of airline companies). The doors are written on the right side of the bridge as you approach the taxi drop-off area. However all doors lead to the same departure hall so the only advantage in getting off at the right door is – you have to walk less.

For our UA049 flight on the day I took pictures, it was Door 5.

Once you enter from the door, first look for a Television showing “Departures” or “Departing Flights”. The flights are always listed in the ascending order of their scheduled departure time (even if the flight is delayed, its actual scheduled time is used for display).

Check-In Zone - Here we can see that UA049 which is scheduled to leave at 00:10 is listed along with the Zone where you have to go Check-in and get your boarding pass. The Zone is “J” in the picture.

Check-in Counter - Once you go inside the door and go towards the zone, you can see another Television listing the “Counter” for your flight. There are numerous counters in each zone, and you have to go to the right counter to get your boarding pass.

At the counter, give your ticket printout and passport, and the attendant should provide you with a boarding pass, an Immigration Form and your passport. The boarding pass will show your seat number and gate number and also your boarding time. Make sure to collect bag tags for all your carry-on baggage. Purses, and pouches are counted as separate carry-on items by the airport security. All your Check-in baggage will be taken away and checked-in to the flight here.

Security - After this, go in the general direction of “Immigration” and “Security” boards. In Mumbai you go through Security first followed by Immigration.

At security make sure that all your carry-on luggage has the security stamps (stamped by the airport security personnel). Then proceed to Immigration.

Immigration - Here you have to submit the form that you got with your ticket and the officer will stamp your passport and boarding pass. I haven’t taken any pictures of the Security area cause I didn’t wish to cause any false suspicions.

Gate - After you are done with Immigration, there will be Television displays again showing Flights listed in ascending order of their scheduled departure time, followed by the Gates at which they will be departing. This information is also available on the boarding pass. But sometimes the Gate might change after the boarding pass is issued, so these displays are the best source of latest information. They also indicate what is the current status at the Gate.

Our flight UA049 can be seen to be departing at Gate 86A. Follow general board directions to 80-90 Gates.

There after follow directions to Gate 86A. And once you reach there, wait for announcements for the actual boarding to start.

Bon Voyage. Mumbai Airport is amazingly beautiful and you can spend hours looking at all the local art that is promoted there.

Cost of being a common man

My Twitter and Facebook timeline is abuzz lately for a few celebrities/ politicians taking or not taking public transport. People who are in favour of important people taking public transport voice the fact that those people should represent the common people from where they come from. If majority of people of that country are poor, then the politicians should also travel like them.

Since everyone is entitled to their opinion, I am posting mine here. I strongly believe that politicians should not travel by public transport. The cost of “showing” them poor is way too high. And here is my argument for them staying away from the general public:

1. As an elected official, you are representing an important post in the Government. Though your life may not seem important to you, the mere title that you are carrying, makes it important. The cost of replacing you if something goes wrong with you, is too high to the economy.
2. Since people tasked with your security know point 1 above, they have to ensure your safety at all costs. If you plan to travel by public transport, your security detail has to do a lot more effort to make you look “common man”. In reality they are frisking and inconveniencing a lot of people who are going about their daily lives.
3. Just by traveling public class, you are not messaging anything. If you are rich, we know you are rich. Be what you truly are. Of course, if it is a vote garnering tactic, then go ahead and do your antics.
4. Just because you are travelling public class, a lot more people are crowding that system to look at you, than to do their daily routines. This burdens public transport. You are best seen on Television or on meet-the-people sessions in an enclosed space specifically meant for that.
5. If you really wish to show that your humble, make sure that you travel in such a way that you inconvenience the least number of people, and make conscious efforts to reduce the cost of your security detail. And yeah, live a simple lifestyle.

Product Pricing

I had the good fortunes of spending half a day with a savvy pricing guy from a local retailer. In the short time that I spent with him, he opened my eyes to how ignorant and gullible a consumer I am, and how retailers make use of that fact quite frequently to con me into parting with more of my money for their products. Enough ink has been spent about all these practices, so I am just gonna give you very short examples that have stuck in my head. Mind you, I am not even talking about the silly promotions that they run all the while. This is the hard-core regular bread and butter stuff:

1. We don’t really know the exact prices of the consumables that we use everyday but don’t buy that frequently – e.g. – Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Dishwasher etc. We are either brand loyal or we just go by the advertising on the shelf to do our purchases. The retailers use the knowledge of this fact to keep changing (mostly increasing) prices of all their consumables very frequently. The demand for these things is pretty inelastic and unless there is a crazy price increase we hardly bother or even realize.
2. Besides prices, the other thing that they frequently play with is the packaging (net weight/ volume). This is because for items that are purchased frequently, we really know the prices quite well, and any movement in the price is easily noticed by the consumer (e.g Milk, Biscuits, Yogurt, Cereals etc.). But we are not that cognizant of the quantity of that item that we buy. So they trick us by changing (mostly decreasing) the volume while keeping the price of the product same, there by increasing the per unit cost.

After listening to his sermon, I was pretty sure that now I have “awakened” and have become a smart shopper till a few days ago I got conned again. A “health” drink that I frequently purchase (I know the price right down to the cents) just went through a huge rebranding and repacking exercise (yeah the “new and improved” trick). My local neighbourhood chemist was running a promotion on it and was selling the old product and new product side by side. Using my age old trick, I picked up the rebranded product (from the back) and went to the check-out counter. Luckily, that guy pointed out to me that to maximize my purchase I should buy the old packaging cause the new packaging actually offers 50gm less. Off 900 gm, it’s a decrease of 5.6% weight keeping the price same.

I don’t have an opinion about whether it is ethical or not. But I just feel as a consumer, we need to be more aware and not this gullible.

47 Ronin

I had a rather lazy Saturday yesterday. Early morning I decided to see a movie. And I chose 47 Ronin. Why 47 Ronin? Well because I was so lazy that I didn’t even bother to scroll down the list to see other movie options (47 being numeric, came at the top of the movie options that I could choose). It was a box office disaster and it still rates at 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.

47 Ronin–Trailer

As for me, I loved the movie. I don’t know why. May be I wasn’t that aware of the samurai culture before (Check out bushido for a quick overview.) Or may be because it is based on a true story. Yup. Though the movie says it is “inspired” and changed the story to make it into a Hollywood movie. The true story is quite moving and awe inspiring. Finally, I couldn’t forego the uncanny resemblance to Bollywood movies in which the loyal naukar (servant) will do anything for his benevolent malik (boss) and the beta (son) takes badla (revenge) for the baap (father). Yup, you got the gist.

Anyway, something most troubling and mystical has to be seppuku. The ritual of suicide. Having seen it in many movies before, I didn’t really read about it before till yesterday. The movie ends with a mass gut-wrenching seppuku.

Which brings me to my final fascination. I seem to like Japanese names and words. Especially when you say them out loud. Don’t believe me? Just lock yourself in a room, and say the names given below out loud. These are some of the actual cast of the movie.

• Hiroyuki Sanada
• Ko Shibasaki
• Tadanobu Asano
• Min Tanaka
• Jin Akanishi
• Masayoshi Haneda
• Hiroshi Sogabe
• Takato Yonemoto
• Hiroshi Yamada
• Rinko Kikuchi

Are you convinced that they sound cool? No? Okay, go back to them and say them out loud again.

Well well, to conclude, I won’t recommend you go see the movie. I just thought I write about it cause I liked it. And here is a cool video teaching you how to correctly pronounce Japanese Car brands.

Real pronunciations of Japanese Car Brands

HBR Articles that influenced me

Continuing on my theme from last week, I decided to write on the Harvard Business Review articles that most influenced me. Top 10 makes it banal, so I stuck to the list as my “most favourite” articles. Since a considerable amount of my “reading time” (during my MBA and after) has been spent reading HBR, I feel it’s unfair to not credit it to have influenced me.

Most articles are behind a pay wall, but if you are creative enough with your Google skills, I am sure you can get them online free. I had free access to HBR as a student, and subsequently my organization also gave me free corporate access.

So here is the list:

Competing on Analytics

If there is one thing that I can squarely “blame” for me jumping into Business Intelligence (head first) as a career, this has to be it. Very well written and then followed by a book by the same name, this is a must start if you are wondering what Analytics can do for an organization.

What is strategy?

The first article that I read on my quest to understand “Strategy”. Simple, but effective. Ended up reading a lot of Michael Porter after this.

The Core Competency of the Corporation

If all that strategy talk gets you confused, I suggest you read this article to understand what is “core competence” and what is a “sustainable competitive advantage”. Though they have mostly become jargons now, it’s good to know what they actually stand for

The Five Competitive Forces that shape Strategy

Strategy again. One reason I love so many Strategy articles is because I specialized in Strategy. None the less, I like reading about it more than on topics of People Management, Marketing and the likes. I have written about this before. The classic Porter’s 5 forces.

Managing Oneself

A very thought provoking article on what to do in life in general and choosing careers, and making life-changing decisions. Peter Drucker at his best.

Who’s got the Monkey?

Another article that has featured on my blog before. Helped me change from an over worked worker bee, to a smart working worker bee (yeah still a bee). Easy, funny but insightful.

Leading Change – Why Transformation Efforts Fail

Whether in life or at work, we all go through these notions of working on “grand transformations” and then miserably failing. I love this article for its clear “8 step approach”

The Power of Virtual Integration

I love this article for the amazing clarity with which the entire concept of integrating across a Supply Chain is explained.

10 books that influenced me

A very close friend of mine “nominated” me on Facebook to put this list together. Since Facebook for me is ephemeral (I still love to document my thoughts and life here), I decided to blog the list.

An intellectual exercise indeed. I spent greater part of my weekend ruminating and here is the outcome. I am aghast to see that almost all the books are prescribed “reading materials” in education. What that means is – I don’t read much (or at all!) fiction. That should partially explain why you find me so boring. Anyway, in no particular order, here is my list:

The Dorling Kindersley Science Encyclopaedia

If there is one reason I am what I am, I have to give credit to this book. My parents bought this book for me during my primary school days (1990s), and I got hooked. This book was my source of “all information” till I discovered Google!

Applied Cryptography

This book was a recommended reading for an Information Security course in my Engineering. I loved it so much that I ended up reading it again after I started to work, just to get a kick out of reading Bruce Schneier’s humorous way of presenting a particularly dry subject. Have followed his blog ever since!

Principles of Economics

I always found Economics to be extremely boring till I read this book. It is practically un-put-downable. I read this book during my MBA and I ended up neglecting other subjects during this term just cause I wanted to complete reading this book. And then I wrote the Economics of Love.

Power of Habit

One of my recent reads. Opened my mind to all this procrastinating and not sticking to schedules and plans that I keep doing. Interesting take on how our life is practically ruled by our habits (good or bad!). The Target Pregnancy detection fiasco is also explained in detail in this book.

In Search of Stupidity

This book is a must read for everyone who criticizes companies for their idiotic decisions in hindsight. A humorous account of how big companies managed to screw it up big time and wipe themselves out. If you have read all the happy books about companies succeeding (Built to Last, Good to Great, In Search of Excellence … ) it’s high time you read this one.

Understanding Michael Porter

Did a lot of Michael Porter during my MBA. Understood some theories, confused some others and ignored a few more. Then I saw this book. Pre-ordered it, and loved it. If you wanna understand the “theory” of strategy, I will highly recommend it.

The Data Warehouse Toolkit

Yup a rather technical book. But if you are struggling to understand what is OLAP and why we need star schemas to keep data to analyse, this is the go-to book. The author is amazingly eloquent and the entire concept is made easy to digest and appreciate.

Show me the Numbers

This book completely changed my understanding of Business Intelligence and Design. A must read for every person who has to routinely work with numbers and present them as a part of their job.

Why does E=mc2? (And Why Should We Care?)

Theoretical Physics has always intrigued me. I wanted to read a book to at least get a very layman understanding of theory of relativity, string theory and the likes. I browsed this book in a bookshop and bought it to go home and spend a considerable amount of time to “study” it. Helped me understand a lot of concepts. Highly recommended to all Sheldon Cooper fans.

Da Vinci Code

The only fictional book on my list. This book really got me hooked to the Internet, Wikipedia, Renaissance artists and the history of Christianity. While the story is celebrated, the side plots are laced with partial truths amongst all that fiction. Really made me spend a lot of time to figure out what is the truth and what are the controversies. Made me spend 4 hours staring at the Mona Lisa.

That pretty much concludes my list. Special mention – Harvard Business Review, Joel Spolsky and Seth Godin. I think I have been heavily influenced by the short (30 odd page) articles that are written in HBR, the nuggets of wisdom shared by Seth on his blog and in his books and Joel on Software – the go-to guide for all Software problems.

Learning online

If you aren’t living under a rock, then you are probably aware of the revolution that is sweeping education. It is called Massive Open Online Course (MooC). Almost every big university I know of, now has its own online course. Besides, you got the good old ones like Coursera. Finally, even SAP has got into the game with its Open SAP content. Education has been revolutionized for ever. There will be a time when people will no longer have to go to Universities to get a degree. We will all study online and study continuous till we leave for our heavenly abode.

I have been trying to study MooCs over the last 2 years. After over 3 failed attempts (in which I left the course half way – got bored or over whelmed) I finally managed to complete 5 courses now. That makes me a self-proclaimed expert. So here is what I have learnt after several botched attempts:

You have to dedicate time for studying in your week – Yup if you don’t plan and allocate time to it just like every other activity, you won’t have time to study. Make sure you plan your calendar for the week with ample time slots for studying.

You need more time to study than you think you do – Most courses say 4-5 hours of study time required per week. Trust me, they are just trying to make you feel good. On an average every week’s worth of lectures and test take me anywhere between 10-20 hours of work depending on how well I can concentrate.

Load your portable device with the lectures – Yeah, your smartphone ain’t for candy crush and Facebook only. Make time to read and listen to your MooC lectures during your daily commutes. Commutes are the best times to listen to the lectures. It is much better time spent than staring at your co-passengers.

Read the course discussion forums – Most course assignments are difficult. The forums are a treasure house of useful information. These forums are almost always well curated and well managed by the professor and the TA so spend ample amount of time to go through them and read the notes.

Practice to assimilate what you learnt – While you can clear the course and get a certificate by following what I mentioned above, online learning doesn’t ever give you the desired amount of practice that you need to master anything. So, you have to spend a lot of time beyond your course to really sit, practice and imbibe whatever you learnt.

Fogged up

So my article about me swimming in the blind got some of you amused. I know, I know there are options available to not let your swimming goggles get all fogged up. And to be frank, I have used a few of them. So this blog post is all about how to prevent goggle fogging. If you are a recreational swimmer (like me), fogging is not really a big issue. I am generally so slow in the pool that other swimmers do watch out for me. I just need to worry about not bumping into the side walls.

I know of at least 3 ways. If you Google you will get a lot more ways, but I haven’t tested them. Living up to my cheapskate roots I will start with the cheapest and go onto the most expensive method:

1) Spit – I know this sounds gross and unhygienic but well it is the cheapest solution to your fogging problems. Just spit in your lenses before you are about to swim, use your finger to spread the spit around and then simply rinse it with water or let it dry. Should last you for a few laps after which you have to repeat the procedure. Remember to rinse your mouth before you go swimming (else your eyes won’t be happy about it)

2) Baby Shampoo – This thing is dead easy. Just get a regular Baby Shampoo (I have only used the one by Johnson & Johnson). Squirt the liquid onto your lenses and then wash them a bit. Let the lenses dry and then use them. No more fogging problems.

3) Anti-fog liquid – This is the one that everyone recommends. And like you guessed its the most expensive option. It works, but yeah it costs a bit. In my quest to spend and pretend to be cool, I have this solution. It works like a charm (if you remember to use it regularly though!).

Who’s got the Monkey?

I am presuming most of you are already aware and actively reading the Harvard Business Review. It is a must read magazine for anyone who is gainfully employed.

Now, over its history (since 1922 or 1980 … the way you wish to look at it!) it has published quite a large number of articles. Not all of them are interesting. And it is extremely boring to actually go and read articles to figure out if they are great or not.

I asked the big bad world of the internet and managed to get two different lists of HBR Top 25 articles and HBR Top 10 articles (based on some random research done by some individuals). And then over the course of last 2 years managed to read all of them.

My favourite HBR article of all times is – Management Time: Who’s got the Monkey? This article was originally published in 1974 November – December. I am sure if you do some creative Google searching you can get the article for free. Apparently it’s one of the top 2 most re-printed articles ever (the other being – The Core Competence of the Corporation).

The Who’s got the Monkey article is light hearted but has an extremely important message on managing your time in the office. I always seem to struggle being on top of all the things I have on my plate and everyday it seems the workload keeps growing. The strategies given in the article have helped me actively control my work without getting too stressed. Being light-hearted and at 6 pages it’s a short read on a commute but it does have a super long lasting impact.

Metallica

Managed to attend a concert of a lifetime yesterday. Yup, I got to hear Metallica live on stage. In the flesh right before my eyes for 2.5 hours while I shouted, jumped and head-banged like there is no tomorrow.

Realized that at this age, things that were seemingly cool at 20 can cause severe headache, dizziness and neck pain the next day. Anyway, now I am happy, satisfied and have got that contended smile on my face and pain everywhere else. I managed to just fulfil one of my very long dreams. To listen to one of my favourite artists of all times – live!

Have been running this list through my head for several years – Artists that I would love to hear live. Unfortunately 1 of them is already no more amongst us now (yeah euphemism for Michael Jackson is dead!)

1. U2
2. Yanni
3. Metallica
4. Air Supply
5. Black Sabbath
6. Michael Jackson

I know my list shows my weird taste in music (or rather it makes me look like a guy who has no real taste). But well, grew up with Michael Jackson, Air Supply, U2 and Yanni and then Metallica and Black Sabbath happened during my confused Engineering years. So that’s the list. And I really hope I can see the rest of the 3 someday, very soon!

What I am

Sometimes I wonder, is Sesame street really for kids? I mean considering that even I (the man!) have written about them two times already on this blog here and here and then significant part of most of my weekends even now is spent video-surfing Sesame street on YouTube!

For some of you who don’t know, there is this small segment in Sesame street where a celebrity comes over and either teaches the viewers (presuming they are kids) a word or if the celebrity is a singer, then they actually sing one of their famous compositions with lyrics converted to appeal kids. Over the past several years there have been numerous celebrities and even I am catching up on them every weekend.

However, I discovered a gem of a song that Will.i.am sung on Sesame street and its titled – What I am. Though it’s a kid’s song, it is amazingly inspiring and has a very catchy tune.

Hear it here … and be inspired!

Will.i.am–What I am

And if you are particularly bored, here is a compiled list of some of my favourite songs on Sesame street by celebrity singers:

• Outdoors – Jason Mraz
• Don’t give up – Bruno Mars
• 1,2,3,4 – Feist
• A Song About Elmo – Adam Sandler
• Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
• Lullaby - Andrea Bocelli
• Lullaby – Ricky Gervais
• I Don’t Know Y – Norah Jones

Yeah, why should only kids get to have all the fun?

Be cool Honey Bunny

Just finished a marathon few evenings of watching movies by Quentin Tarantino. To be precise these are the movies I saw:

• Kill Bill Vol. 1
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Reservoir Dogs
• Inglourious Basterds
• Pulp Fiction
• Django Unchained

Now most of the people I know share a love-hate relationship with all of Quentin’s movies. Everyone agrees that the storylines are good, but many people also complain of his use of excessive violence in all of his movies.

Frankly, I don’t understand his rationale behind making his movies so gory, but probably that makes them look – “I don’t give a damn” – cool. The kinds in which you can identify the lead character as a super bad a$$.

I didn’t exactly grow up seeing his movies. I mean my conservative middle class Indian upbringing would have definitely forbade me from seeing anything of this sorts. But, over the last few years I stole a glance of a scene from here and there (mostly from YouTube I guess) till I finally succumbed to watching the whole movies. Quentin’s movies tend to grow on you and the more you see, the more you love them. I got hooked and I guess I have managed to see Pulp Fiction at least 4 times.

Pulp Fiction–Dancing Scene

Now, I have become a self confessed Quentin fan. I like his style of “cool” and I can pretend to like his gut wrenching goriness. After all, I have to live up to be a man. Anyway, just in case you are interested – What do you think is my favourite Quentin movie of all times? Well – its Inglourious Basterds. Its cool, and in his own style, Quentin manages to rewrite history in less than 3 hours.

Inglourious Basterds–Trailer

And before I end, I know I still have to watch Death Proof and Jackie Brown. I shall do that real soon.