Khalid Saleem's Blog

Responsibilities Of A Leader

2021-04-02T20:23:00.004-07:00

Someone asked me about 3 key responsibilities of a leader, #ResponsibilitiesOfALeader

1) Be available to your team. Give priority to your teams ask for your time to have them talk to you, allow them to seek guidance, let them provide you feedback or advice, and share their challenges/experiences. Help them arrive on a decision and let them take action. As a leader the first and foremost priority should be to be available to spend time with our team.

2) Mentor the leaders in your team to "Be Hungry & Serve Humbly". Winning is important, but how you get there is even more important. Set aggressive targets and goals but dont forget that YOU are part of the team. Your job is to help the team achieve those aggressive targets vs simply checking on the status. Become a part of their journey, become a part of their story and when they win celebrate it as their win and thank them for giving YOU (their leader) the opportunity to be a part of their team.

3) An inspiring vision that influences them to strive for better product, experiences or journeys for customers/stakeholders vs doing them because their boss told them to do so. Remember, people who are passionate about their work are the ones who sculpt inspirational stories. Your job is to bring passion to your team's work life.

Covid-19 & Instructional Learning

2020-05-25T16:24:00.001-07:00

COVID-19 has essentially accelerated digital & video adoption of instructional training, physical education and classroom based learning. In addition to schools & classrooms going virtual, professional training, after school programs, sports training, yoga classes , cooking classes and many more have quickly pivoted to relying on digital means of imparting knowledge & training.

I foresee these to be the norm going forward with digital learning and virtual education adoption transcending beyond our imagination and well beyond the current physical border limitations. Yogi's in India teaching virtually to their audiences across the world for a nominal fee, Italian Chefs sharing their secrets and recipes across the globe but most importantly the traditional university learning experience may completely switch to teaching through digital modes only within the next 12-18 months. This will also allow institutions to reduce their facilities and infrastructure maintenance cost while independent coaches or instructors can now quickly launch their offerings online without having a need for physical locations/setup. This shall soon give rise to extremely cost effective learning options for future students.

https://lnkd.in/eqjUqX9

Data is King but Speed is the Emperor

2017-11-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

To all the leaders out there, challenge your work family to go faster but never forget to pay attention to the great ideas that your work family puts out there on a regular basis. Leaders should never let themselves become vulnerable to paralysis by analysis. Even when you are not fully aligned with the team, simply commit to them if your team believes in it. If the idea becomes a success (Transparent and Bezos), your work family will bask under it's glory and the results will speak for themselves. In case they fail, the learnings from the failure will make them resilient and become better than before. Most importantly, for them seeing that you had full belief in their abilities and the fact that you trusted them will go a long way, guaranteeing success for your team. So have faith in your team, push the team to go faster, brainstorm and commit faster, fail faster and watch the transformation.

Remember "Data is King but Speed is the Emperor".

Be Afraid of Your Customers

2017-11-18T11:50:00.002-08:00

Be afraid of your customers. Be afraid every day that they may decide to take their business somewhere else and leave you hanging. This mindset will challenge all of us specially the ones in the retail sector to ensure that we go out there everyday to provide our customers an experience which is nothing less than exceptional. Never think about aiming for a short term gain that will jeopardize your long term vision or goal however lucrative it may seem.

Formula for Success

2017-11-18T11:47:00.001-08:00

Work like a startup, Deliver like a startup (Agility), and offer nothing less than a Ritzy customer experience

Object Detection APIs will change the future of camera apps

2017-06-24T23:26:00.003-07:00

Google launches tensorflow object detection api. This can help stir a new trend in photo apps where the apps can be then used to remove detected items from a photo and may be even replace an object with a different object. Think #SNAPCHAT AR ads, and enhance them to allow objects from your own photos replace those in another pictures. Potentially in the future, this can be moved to videos when combined with Google cloud Video Intelligence API. Take it one step further and let computers build your marketing ads on the fly and publish with human intervention.

https://research.googleblog.com/2017/06/supercharge-your-computer-vision-models.html

AI for self-optimizing E-Commerce Experiences

2017-06-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Aritificial Intelligence (AI) in E-Commerce can be used to personalize, influence and guide customer shopping behavior to items, products and services that they actually will buy or are indeed looking for. This would make use of "in-the-moment" personalized recommendations based on a user's actions on the website in near realtime vs relying upon prevalent recommendation strategies based on historical data such customer who saw item A bought item B.

AI can also be used to revolutionize A/B testing where instead of human beings defining, building, optimizing and then determining the experience winner, machine learning can be leveraged to run multiple A/B tests simultaneously and then run different combinations of all the experiences, followed by the best possible combination, selecting the winning customer experience that ensures highest conversion rates. An E-Commerce giant planning to change the look and feel of their site can take all the different designs across say their home, promotional, product and cart pages and have the AI based A/B testing engine run all the different combinations. AI based A/B testing can even self optimize the winning combination to test potential increase in conversion rates. Let's use machine learning to drive E-Commerce. #RiseOfBots #RiseOfMachines

Some work being done in this space by Sentient Technologies

http://www.sentient.ai/ascend/

The Rise of AI and the End of Online Privacy

2017-05-28T12:11:00.001-07:00

Online Privacy - Does the Generation Z care about online Privacy? The impending death of privacy combined with the ever increasing use of Algorithms, AI and Machine Learning to predict, Infer, suggest, recommend and potentially even make future decisions will shape a new world where human decision making may rely solely on machines vs. input from their fellow beings. Bots telling you when to buy stocks, air tickets, concert tickets etc are becoming prevalent today and will more likely be used by humans in the near future for most of their decision making. If you get a chance do listen to the following. #RiseofMachines

Dr. Michael Kosinski - Assistant Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Part 1:

Part 2:

Securing Microservices

2016-08-28T19:18:00.002-07:00

Securing Microservices that are serving internal as well as external requests can become tricky. If the services are serving APIs for internal requests only, its easy to place them behind the firewalls and grant access to them from the internal systems/clients only. However, when it comes to microservices that serve external clients security becomes critical and should be given utmost importance. API Gateway pattern is an approach aimed at micro-services management and security.

A few implementations based on the above pattern are AWS API Gateway, and IBM API Manager etc. OAUTH, JWT (Tokens by Reference for External Access & Tokens by value for Internal Access) are well established approaches for securing the micro-services. Commercial Products such as Ping Access also allow for token based API/Micro-services access. The key aspect that these solutions are yet to unravel is to identify a seamless and secure way of allowing browser based clients access without having to authenticate via an Identity service. The aforementioned solutions though can be modified to facilitate such an approach. If you have micro-services that are in the cloud such as AWS or Google Cloud, AWS API Manager with its API access key solution or using a custom Authorizer can provide security for your apis.

Accelerated Mobile Pages aka AMP

2016-05-22T11:54:00.001-07:00

Back in September 2015, the first official specs for the Accelerated Mobile Pages project were launched. The goal of the project is to provide a mechanism that facilitates faster delivery and rendering of content served over mobile web pages. Google is backing this project and when combined with Progressive Web Apps project it can help publishers of content as well as mobile site owners to reduce current high bounce rates attributed to a variety of performance and page load concerns. Google is also allowing free use of Google AMP Cache and has stated that "it will provide a cache that can be used by anyone at no cost, and all AMPs will be cached by Google’s cache". You can easily create your own AMP pages. Discovery of AMP pages by Google and other search engines is easily handled by the <link> tag with "amprel". AMP also provides for creating responsive page by simply appending "layout=responsive" to the AMP Html tags. Check it out at the following links

Google AMP Project

Google AMP Cache

Swift - An Interactive & open source attitude towards iOS programming by Apple - Is Apple aiming for write it once, run it anywhere?

2015-08-30T18:36:00.004-07:00

Later this year, Apple will be making it's Swift programming language open source. The concept makes all the sense as it aims to re-invigorate and define new benchmarks across the mobile computing universe of phones, phablets and tablets. Of course, arguments were and will continue to be made regarding the market share of Apple vs the glut of Android based devices, however Swift may be a game changer. There have already been attempts at making a compiler that can convert Swift code into Java byte code that can then be converted into an Android Package (APK) for installation on Android Devices (Use Apple Swift to make an Android App). Once Swift is released as Open Source, there will definitely more attempts at this. Think about companies who would like to write it once and release their apps to both iOS and Android based devices.

Swift Playgrounds lets you see the results for every line of code that is typed. This lends itself naturally to viewing UI changes specially code snippets for an animated SpriteKit scene. Stay tuned for the Open Source Launch and get ready for a new mobile app development era.

Quartz Scheduler vs. Spring Scheduler

2015-03-22T20:15:00.001-07:00

Spring @scheduler vs. Quartz Scheduler

Spring Scheduler is a truly light weight implementation that will suffice for simple scheduling needs. If you are using Spring 3.0, it provides annotation support for both Task Scheduling and Asynchronous method execution. Spring Scheduler provides support for

Task Scheduling using FixedRate (Run periodically at specific intervals even if previous execution did not finish) & FixedDelay (Delay the next execution of the task for a specific time frame after completion of last execution)
Cron expression based scheduling

On the contrary, Quartz Scheduler is a full fledged open source library that provides support for Job Scheduling. Its comparatively complex than Spring Scheduler but provides support for enterprise level features like JTA and clustering. It comes with JobPersistence support that can be extremely beneficial for failed jobs as well as reporting purposes.

With the use of the included JDBCJobStore, all Jobs and Triggers configured as "non-volatile" are stored in a relational database via JDBC.
With the use of the included RAMJobStore, all Jobs and Triggers are stored in RAM and therefore do not persist between program executions - but this has the advantage of not requiring an external database.

Clustering feature of Quartz can be used for Fail-safe and/or Load Balancing purposes. However, recommended approach is to run the nodes in a cluster on the same machine. In case, you need to implement the cluster across multiple machines, a time sync service daemon like http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/its.htm should be used to ensure that clocks are synchronized between these machines that are part of the cluster.

In essence, if your goal is to implement a quick and basic form of job/task scheduling then Spring Scheduler will be ideal. On the other hand, if you need clustering as well as JobPersistence support then Quartz may serve better.

Leadership ... Leader's Dont Influence... They Inspire and Motivate!!!

2013-05-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

Leadership

Teacher Appreciation Week - exclusively from Office Depot

2013-04-30T20:49:00.002-07:00

http://www.officedepot.com/a/promo/pages/042813_teachers/?cm_re=Home-_-Spot8-_-W18TeachersMini

Mophie Juice Pack by Office Depot ...

2013-04-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

Mophie Juice Pack by OfficeDepot

http://www.officedepot.com/a/promo/pages/042813_mophie/?cm_re=Home-_-Slider-_-W18MophieTESTSLIDER

PUMA Voltaic - A Real Cool Pair of Running Shoes at a great price

2013-04-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

Simply Awesome....

iOS 6 Passbook .... One stop shop for deals, steals and above all "Loyalty Programs"

2012-09-09T07:03:00.001-07:00

iOS 6 Passbook

Roku - In my opinion the only true challenge to Apple TV

2012-07-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Roku - In my opinion the only true challenge to Apple TV

Wakanda - A tool, An IDE or A Framework

2012-07-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Wakanada - A JavaScript based framework for implementing multi-channel (mobile and web based) business applications.

Introducting Wakanda. One open and complete solution for all your Web and mobile business apps.
http://www.wakanda.org/overview

This looks very interesting... Will be trying it out and keep you posted...

Pakistan's Deputy PM - Adding Power to a nation without Power (Bijli)

2012-06-29T18:14:00.002-07:00

Pakistan - Can someone please explain ... Coffers are empty, electricity is at the brink of extinction, inflation is at an all time high, yet a deputy PM is added to the 'people friendly' list of VVIP's? ----- I would rather bring Musharraf back ... Funny that no one is talking about it

Some very interesting feedback by my friends and colleagues....

Omair Chaudhry Agree with the sentiment but there is no short cut to democracy. Present government is fully corrupt (A-Z) and incompetent. But if we want to break the vicious cycle between army for few years and then ‘civil’ government for few then we have to take this hard (very hard) medicine and let these clown complete their time and let the People not the military throw (vote) them OUT!

Khalid Saleem Agreed bro... Imran is the option and bringing back Mush was just a reference :) definitely army isn't the solution either

Junaid Arshed Khalid : you dont need to worry , people will test these corrupt leaders and then in next election they will kick them out and bring PTI and then all of these corrupt will join PTI and will get re-elected and the cycle will continue

Asad Ansari Continuing with what you said, what are the people of pakistan doing? Readdressing what you said, funny that one is "doing" anything about it. I am probably wrong but it feels like people in pakistan are content with their lives. If I am wrong then why haven't we seen a replication of tahriri square? Roughly 80% of population lives under $2 a day...Isn't it time to shuffle things a bit..Allah said, conditions won't change unless the state of people change. Allah knows best.

Zubair Jami sir ji, in this limited time PM will nt have much of time for looting.... so there has to b another one to fill in the gaps

Omair Chaudhry Junaid that's not cycle but progress coz in that case people will vote PTI out.... It needs to be organic system... Only then policy will matter not the people in ur party

Junaid Arshed yes Omair and that progressive cycles will take at least 100 years to reach a point where these kind of issues Khalid mentioned can be resolved.I personally believe Pakistan is today , what many of developed countries in Europe were in 1812.

Nauman Rashid Khan it Brings me a smile. Junaid being sarcastic, Puppy worried and Omair being optimistic. U all r right in ur own regard. in simple words, mujhe aisa lagta hai k hum ne Democracy k sabaq ka ratta laga lia hai or samjh k yaad nahi kia. To Iqbal, democracy is a system where "Bandon ko gina jata ha, tola nahin jata". Im not saying its a bad system but just that its successful application pre-requires a population where people who weigh are greater in number and willing to participate. There may b many examples but at the moment im reminded of Jamshed Dasti only, whose re-election to power is an arithmatic validation of our cumulative political brain. Also, apparent and inherent problem of Army rule is its autocratic nature. Would u not classify the incumbent regime as autocratic? Or do u expect the next regime not to be? When along the timeline do u expect approaching a stage where Pakistanis would have "progressed" that they would vote out a political party on the basis of their policy?

Junaid Arshed Nauman : i will give ghissi pitti theory again here .You are what your unconscious is ,your unconscious is built based on environment ( values , culture , religion and habits ) .Environment affects psychology , when this environment is persistent , this psychology is persistent and it will become part of your DNA and you will inherit it in your DNA.To undo your DNA , you have to undo all environment in a form of cycle .For case of subcontinent , its question of 1000 yrs .They have to change their unconscious which was built based on environment of 1000 yrs ( as in case of jamshed dasti ).This is very difficult but not impossible.

Ahmad Wain Nauman, excellent questions with no easy answers. In my opinion we need 5% willing to turn the mental switch ON for the other 95% and make them realize the power they possess. I think there is no 3-4 generation process, there is always 1 concious generation that turns a nations around. We have to decide if we are the ONE. You can count me among the optimistics I guess :)

Khalid Saleem Guys I am amazed that this simple question brought all this great discussion back again .. I am loving it and with your due permission i am gonna start with this on my blog. The biggest question how will we fix this problem and what is it that will make us realize that creating political martyrs does not help the nation

Omair Chaudhry Great debate. I guess one thing is for sure we Pakistanis since independence have been impatient and I guess that's the reason we never allowed a single government to complete its tenure. Thats the reason we are stuck in this cycle. When we are ruled by military after few years we turn against them and then once we have corrupt gov we are waiting for military to take over instead of voting them out ourseleves. Democracy is a slow and organic system which needs time to go to the grass root level. Junaid it might take 100 years (although I am optimistic it won't just look at our doorstep) but I would say its better to be on a slow train thats on the right track instead to be on a fast one which keeps on getting off every now and then. Nauman I don't expect any society changes in a single day and I don't expect it to. Its over time. What you need for society to mature is their right to make their voices heard and listened to and the first step in this is to give them the RIGHT to VOTE. So keep your chins up and remeber to vote on election day instead of sitting on sofa for next 5 years and cribbing about the system, goverment and society!

Junaid Arshed four important things for nation demise and rise are knowledge , economy , morality and awareness.someone definitely has to lead but remember change is never up to down , its always down to up .When people at down will have these four things , a change will come that will move upwards .

Kayani Javaid Ask us .I look back 60 years of my life....Politicians and mainly bureaucratic organs placed package after package to every leader military or civilian to utilize the tool of making money... .looted and plundered Pakistan..with both hands and even now every minute..provided foolproof ways to get out of it and in end both took advantage....see the senior bureaucrats Joint Secretary and above ...even retired how they live and how their kids have been educated and settled...

Kayani Javaid most unfortunate...the Deputy PM was nominated as one would to assassinators by BB herself in a letter to Musharraf

Ahmad Wain It wasnt long ago, people came out on the streets, raised awareness and voted to create Pakistan. It didnt take too long and 100% literacy wasnt a pre-requisit. Its time for a repeat to save Pakistan and when the 5% amongst us is willing to step up and do this pains-taking job remains to be seen.

Ahmad Wain Perhaps the 5% still have electricity through UPS and can still afford petrol to run generators, they can still get to work and come home for dinner. Their kids still go to a reasonable school and they can still afford a vacation. Life is good :)

Khalid Saleem Not that I have followed Pakistani media lately but I am yet to see the media present this as outright abuse of power ... The chief justice sneezes and media jumps on it, talk about conspiracies and the Geo's, Dunya's and other outlets will present it as if the world is about to end yet I have still not seen a true condemnation of such blatant abuse of power .... Are they intentionally ignoring it ? Finally, I really don't understand why the Riaz Malik fiasco is such a big deal. The current situation is simply a clash of personalities and should not be confused with the supremacy of judiciary or courts as the office bearers should be answerable to the people ..(not that I consider Malik Riaz an honest man)

ASUS ZenBook

2012-05-28T18:51:00.005-07:00

Asus Zenbook - Check it out at Office Depot ... A competition to Macbook Air and the price Unbeatable...

ASUS Zenbook - Check it out

Dragon TV

2012-05-28T12:19:00.001-07:00

DRAGON TV: A NEW LIFESTYLE... YOU MAY NEVER USE A REMOTE.....

Clojure - Is this the language of the future?

2011-08-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

A dynamic programming language which compiles directly to JVM bytecode, and supports Concurrent Programming...

http://clojure.org

The BIG Question: is it time for functional programming to dethrone OOP?

Mobile framework comparison

2011-08-21T14:58:00.001-07:00

Interesting Article....

Comparison of Major Mobile Frameworks
http://interfacethis.com/2011/adventures-in-html5-part-one/