Ali's Vantage

In favor of recession

2011-09-29T06:20:00.001-07:00

Recession, contrary to common opinion, is a needed part of the economy cycle and more importantly for sustaining our civilization.

Booms while great, do have downsides. No need for me to write on the upsides of a boom since they're well known and even fantasized! So to the upsides of a recession:

1. Helps the 'humanity' aspect. During extended booms, its easy for individuals to became part of a rat race ie who has the biggest car, the exotic summer vacation etc etc. Recessions enable individuals to be grateful for what they took for granted. It helps reset the human clock on being content.

2. Improves professionalism. This is my favorite - during booms the dumbest of the lot start to believe an imaginary worth of themselves. During booms, the human resource shortage creates an impression in the heads of the 'not so above average' that they have abilities that need to be coveted by employers. Well, the wake up call during recessions, when the low performers are typically first to be let go helps them get out of their slumber. I've seen engineers being hired in booms who I would hesitate to hire as blue-collar workers, and that puts a dent in any organizations minimum bar of professionalism.

3. Sets up an environment for the next boom. Recessions help people realign such that the bad typically get weeded out and the great get some breathing space to kick around. This sets up the infrastructure for the next boom since exceptional talent is able to focus without being distracted by the not-so-talented.

So next time you hear that we're in a recession, stop and think if you're one of those who needs to realign and/or push harder to be the best that you can be.

Rails Developers

2011-03-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

I've recently started noticing the same trend in Ruby on Rails development as Java development was 10 years ago. Everyone who is anyone is jumping into it. From engineers to musicians. While its nice to have a lot of developers, the end quality remains elusive. So if you're thinking about picking up Rails, ask yourself this:

Are you in it for the money or are you in it for the passion?

If you're for the former, all the best to you, I really dont have much to say after that.

If you're the latter, then I suggest you strategize before becoming a code monkey, a list I'd recommend is:

1. Read the basics - ie know what Ruby is first and then pick up on the basics of Ruby on Rails

2. Write a simple application - but dont leave the 'magic' work under the hood without understanding it. Rip it apart, figure out why something works and why it doesnt work. Scaffold's and ActiveRecord in Rails make web development look like a walk in the park. But only those developers who understand what happens under the hood make it past the standard websites and onto the more interesting and challenging tasks of scalability and security.

3. Keep returning back to the basics. A sky scrapper would fall if its foundations were to be eroded. Dont let that happen to you.

4. Be active on GitHub. Nothing beats being the person who writes code that hundreds or thousands of other developers get to use. And you'll learn meta-programming in the process too!

5. Take on energetic developers as your proteges. Every now and then you'll get a question that'll make you think even when your current projects doesnt.

6. Avoid the 'I am god' syndrome. No matter how good you are, there will always be someone better. And nobody likes a snob anyway!

The light at the end of the tunnel for Off-Shore Web Development

2011-03-11T06:25:00.001-08:00

If you're in the offshore web development business and think there's a train coming head on - you're probably right!

I've been pondering over this for a few months now and the conclusion I come up with is that offshore web development companies are like tiny fishing boats rushing into the ocean not realizing its the calm before the prefect storm. Most such businesses today are only concerned with one thing, recruitment. Gone is the thought that there can be a storm lurking just beyond the horizon and the more they recruit the bigger the downsizing they'll need to do.

If you're a developer, work hard to be the best. Since the best define their own destiny and even during tough times can find work.

Why do I believe this is a bubble thats going to burst:

1. Recent adoption of consumer devices eg iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry pad etc are sending most brands and companies into a panic attack, the same way the dot com boom of 2000 did. Most of the mobile apps being launched today are plain crappy - they add little value other than being installed on the device and allowing the user to enjoy a customized experience. But WAIT, didnt the web promise us the same? Oh right ...html just isnt ready to do the work these apps can, or is it. It doesnt matter which side of the argument you're on, we can all agree that html5 will become mainstream and these apps will be gone the same way desktop apps have.

2. It takes 3 (three) developers to do the work of one. One developer is doing the website, another the iOS and another the android (lets assume no body wants to develop for BB, WebOS and Symbian). Question: How many browsers are there? How many developers does it take to write an app for all of them? ONE! So we likely have a 3x Artificial/Temporary demand in resources going on right now.

3. Labor Intensive. All labor intensive industries have gone the way of disruption through productivity tools and automation. Software is no different, and we're already seeing the emergence of a new breed of RAD tools as well as technologies that enable porting to all devices by writing code once. Ahh - Java Applets, you were born prematurely! Flash - you suck. Microsoft SilverLight - you belong to the 'dark side'! HTML5, you'll do just fine.

So the million dollar question is, When is the bubble going to burst. Thats anyone's guess, but a market correction will come. Have you hedged your bets in terms of growth initiatives?

StartUp! Why NOW?

2011-02-25T05:29:00.000-08:00

I've been doing extreme forms of mental tightrope walking over the past few months. And the end result is me going my separate way. Each time I state to someone that I've left my X-Company to form a startup, I get asked "WHY" ??

So here it is, and for those that dont know me, I hope it helps you think about your own aspirations and next steps.

THE WHAT

I've resigned as a CTO & partner of a mid size software services/products company specializing in web and social media applications.

THE WHY

My career path (you can check the details at http://www.linkedin.com/in/asyed) started with a step into a 20-30 engineers company and then went on to working for a 50,000 engineers company. Then the downward slope of joining a 5000 man company and then to a dozen or so engineers based one. The latter being the place I'm just exiting from and now being over 80 and likely to be the next big software house in Pakistan.

Reading the above, it almost makes me want to pinch myself on leaving a technology company when I'm confident in its growth, and by and large being a great place to be. Even my exit speech left most confused if I had changed my mind to stay or if I was indeed leaving :)

However, my biggest fear was an image of myself that I saw 2 to 5 years in the future - an EX-engineer who's stuck doing management crap primarily troubled with recruitment and employee training. Growth for a software services company will always be about the ability to recruit the smartest engineers, thats because engineers create value and not the business managers. And constant growth pains isnt the kind of problem that gets an engineer-at-heart excited. And lets face it, services industry is not for the faint of heart. Its a shop thats open for business, and you dont get to choose your customers. The customers choose you. Read the story of the mac store employee to see how even top brands have to entertain jerks at times

***Disclaimer: Most customers are professional, but every now and then the few jerks can hit the raw nerve, or at times the firms own jerk engineers can cause perfectly professional customers to match them.

And then the light at the end of the tunnel, the product idea for mid to large businesses. I remember having to waste my weekends just to file paperwork while working at the fortune 500, and its still the same for my peers working in mid to large enterprises! Keeping the actual product ideas under the lid until its ready for the curtain raising!

The idea(s) came about during the usual client calls and even recruitment interviews with fairly experienced software development managers working in/for large enterprises. And it hit me that most mid/large sized companies are still stuck in the early 2000's ... a decade of catching up still needs to be done in how most companies run their internal software development units. Having worked in a fortune 500 while interacting with a couple dozen other fortune 100's, it was like a huge 10,000 Watt bulb switching on! The ROI and the pain each employee of a mid to large size firm goes through to get their job done is considered part of the job.

No more pain for employees of mid to large size firms is the value proposition of the fledgling startup!

THE WHY NOW

I'm betting on 2011 being a great boom year, and that a professor of mine once explained to me the greek concept of opportunity or Kairos. MIDDLE EAST: Get your act together quickly, high oil prices are NOT good for the global economy!

And like any business that needs to be successful, the passion to excel and deliver must exist. And for me, its now! I believe in the mid to large businesses product space and more importantly the ability to execute on it. The rest of the matters will be tackled as they come (the "what if questions")

Lastly and probably more importantly, if you want to be part of a journey that is sure to be exciting and nothing short of a crash course in creating a great products based startup targeting the North America market AND you're ~~great~~ exceptional in UI design or Rails development, then get in touch with me! jobs 7vals.com (spammers - stay away!)

To Write or to Rewrite

2010-12-25T02:53:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has ever managed engineers would know how most love a clean slate. Its natural to want and yearn for a clean canvas where the engineer can let loose their 'creativity' and 'architecture' sense.

That stated, most real world problems require adding to an existing structure. For software engineers, that means working with an existing and typically significant codebase that may crumble if not handled correctly when adding functionality.

I've seen software engineers attempt whole re-writes just to avoid reviewing existing codebase and its associated delicate handling. The question being when is a rewrite justified, and my rule of thumb is:

Do Rewrite: Existing code is in a technology that is outdated, or is written in spagetti code, or has Systemic issues (security, scalability, performance etc). All of these stated classifications must also meet the criteria that any enhancement or fix done on top of the existing code will require more time than the rewrite. The enhancement can be the specific task or group of tasks in the roadmap.

Dont Rewrite: Existing code is more or less feature complete with possibly a few glitches.

The reason to avoid a rewrite as much as possible is that code generally evolves from its original specifications, and while attempting a rewrite a lot of unwritten specifications are overlooked thereby arriving at a rewrite that is functionally less mature as well as possibly suffering the same issues that exist in the older code.

An interesting experience I had recently around this subject was with my ATS (Auto Transfer Switch). The picture of which is above. The Magnetic Connector got worn down and I asked a electrician to replace the specific component. He stared at the circuit for 15 minutes and then prescribed that he needed to completely rewire everything (and will obviously charge me for it!). On my insistance that only one component is broken, and he just needs to make sure the replaced component is installed correctly, he refused to take on the project since he had no idea of the circuit. It was obvious to me the electrician was more a creature of habit and preferred to work on circuits created by him so as to avoid having to use diagnostic tools to determine where the '0's and '1's are. I knew he'd create a similar layout and then I'd have the same problem if I ever called in a different electrician with similar traits. So I stared at the circuit for about 60 minutes after he left and it finally made enough sense for me to do the replacement (which was a 10 minute task!)

Empowering Employees

2010-10-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

Great companies have empowered employees, and they're trusted to make the right decisions. However often we come across cases where really smart employees make the dumbest of mistakes. It shakes up the whole notion of delegation and if indeed micromanagement is the way to go (not!).

I recently came across a three letter acronym that tied up a lot of loose ends of such thoughts. The magic acronym being FAE (Fundamental Attribution Error). In summary this means that when we observe the behavior of an individual, we overly attribute it to his/her personality traits rather than the environment or context.

As an example, software engineers might be writing extremely poor code not because they're bad engineers but because:

1. Timelines - the team manager might overly emphasize timelines and not enough on quality. This will cause many good engineers to unlearn their good practices for ones that get the job done in the eyes of their manager, and at least in the short term keeps things running.

2. Precedence - if a new engineer is added to a team where best practices are not implemented, but rather the only form of measurement is getting the task checked off in the project plan, then they'll do as 'When in Rome, do as the Romans!'

3. Extreme Pressure - too much pressure (such as regularly being threatened on loosing pay/job if ...) makes things worse then good. Under extreme pressure, the 'thinking' part of the brain for most individual stops working and the primitive one takes over. The goal is to just make it to the next day without concern for making the best decision, which relates to something that lasts, scales and all the other goodies!

4. Context - Logical decisions require understanding the context. If a developer does not understand the bigger picture, he/she is likely to make mistakes since the context does not exist for evaluation of the trade offs for the design decision. So each and everyone in the team should understand what the end goal for the team is.

So next time round, when dealing with a generally smart employee having made a poor judgement call, do think if it relates to the context/environment. And if it does, how to go about changing the environment to ensure it doesnt happen again to other employees.

Operation Flood Relief - Swat, Pakistan

2010-09-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

Picture 1: Thumb prints along with names and id card numbers of those who were identified by a survey team and then received the rations

Picture 2: This river flowed on the far left corner, while a road and houses existed where the river is now. All points beyond where we were standing were now cut off with no access to food supplies. The river was originally 50 m across, now its 230 m!

Picture 3: This is a blurry picture of a US army helicopter participating in the relief effort.

Picture 4: Just one of the many bridges washed away by the floods.

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to participate in a flood relief effort that a friend of mine had organized. Knowing my friend to be a good planner and executioner, I took it on to accompany him during one of the many trips he'd carried out for the relief effort. Here is a narrative on my experience.

Purpose: The specific relief effort that I was part of consisted of approx USD 16-20K of food items (with due thanks to a lot of individuals that my friend had been able to reach out to). Each assigned person was to receive 2 bags of food. Which was:

a. 20 KG of Wheat

b. 20 KG of misc items including: Rice, Cooking Oil, Sugar, Tea, Onion, Potatoes and Pulses

Scale: 500 families were targeted ie 500 x 2 bags = 1000 bags = 40,000 KG's of food.

Strategy: A local NGO was picked to provide administrative support. The benefit of local on-ground NGO's with active presence during the pre-flood days being they have good awareness of the ground situation as well as crowd management, a major issue which I'll refer to later. The particular NGO picked during my trip was MuslimAid, a UK based charity organization.

Our original goal was to target Mianwali, a city in Punjab submerged by water, but thanks to the feedback from the NGO, it was made clear that this particular town had now started receiving flood relief and aid. Swat, an area in the north western area of Pakistan (now known as Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa) however was not receiving much aid and the situation there was quickly becoming catastrophic. So Swat became our target area. Specifically Bahrain, Kalam and Uther town residents (there is no road link to any of these towns at the moment)

Execution: Three trucks loaded with relief goods were prepared with the help of MuslimAid, and directed to move towards Swat. In parallel, an on ground team started the survey of affected families and handed them coupons for collecting the ration items at a pre-stated distribution point and time. Most of the families sent an adult member or two to hike to the collection point to bring back the ration.

The trucks reached the point of distribution in the morning while we (NGO rep, my friend and I) headed off to the area separately. At the pre-determined time of distribution, the NGO rep first gave a run down of the distribution strategy to those who had gathered. Only those who were in the list were to receive it, so others need not wait. And being orderly was a requirement since everyone on the list would receive the rations, and it may take some time but at least no one would be hurt in the process.

Most of the folks had come after a day or ever 2 days of trek. Swat is unique in the type of flood devastation since it was not devastated by the water coming into the towns as its a mountainous area, but because of massive landslides. The landslides had cut off major towns of the area that were known to be dependent on the lower areas since vegetation and food items were not grown in abundance at high altitudes.

Most of the rivers had carved out 2x areas for themselves. An analogy would be to assume the grand canyon was populated by thousands of people and the road network to be around the cliffs of the Colorado river. And the river suddenly swelling up and eating away all the bridges and most of the road network by carving out double or even triple area for itself leaving people stranded on cliffs and mountains (those who were not washed away) with no food.

As the folks came by one by one on their name being called, they lifted two bags weighing 40 KG on their backs; an immense sense of sympathy struck me on what still remained for them to return back to their families. A trek of a day or two with two bags weighing 40 KG must be back breaking. I do hope all of them reached their loved ones and they were able to have a decent meal to eat for a few weeks (our estimation was the ration would last a family of 5 around a month).

Conclusion: Relief effort is not for the faint of heart, although I believe we should all make an effort to participate with on site presence, since it helps ensure minimization of wastage since food is not dumped in the wrong areas or distributing of wrong items is fixed by enabling quick feedback to the stakeholders.

And by using on ground NGO's or other individuals well versed with the locals, who have done their homework in terms of identification of needy families and individuals, the distribution can be extremely gratifying knowing its going to the needy who may not be strong enough to stand random food throws from the sky or fast moving trucks. The planned effort also ensures:

a. Fairness - Relief goods that get thrown from trucks or helicopters in crowds typically lead to the toughest men receiving it. It truly is the law of the jungle since every man and women are up for themselves in trying the snatch whatever they can grab for sustenance. The worst affected individuals suffer since they're typically too weak or hurt to be in the crowd.

b. Civilness - Random distribution leads to reinforcement of unruly behavior during relief distributions. We observed a distribution of water bottles during our trip (claimed by someone to be from Jazz/Mobilink), where two individuals were throwing away bottles and two were using sticks to fend off the crowd from climbing into the truck. Once they left, it could be seen that a few folks had a few packs of bottles while most had nothing. The sad part was that this area had ample clean water since Swat is an area of natural water springs! It was food that was scarce.

c. Measurable benefit - All individuals who collected the relief items were checked against their national ID card number to be residents of the affected area in addition to having the coupon and listed in the survey list. The ID card numbers were then to be submitted to the local administration to ensure they know which families have received rations to facilitate other ongoing reliefs. Of course, I think its obvious the lists would not be used by local administration since they're not known for their competence, however that shouldnt be a reason for not following through on this practice.

Miscellaneous: A number of helicopters could be seen flying, both Pakistan and US army. It was heartening to see US army active in the humanitarian relief effort since the only way to get food to the worst affected areas is to ask the folks to do the 1-2 day trek (like we did), or use helicopters.

Want a root canal with that?

2010-06-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

You must have heard "want french fries with that", if you didnt then you must have been living under the rock! I think it was McDonnalds who introduced this famous quote thats used as the defacto lingo for cross-selling products. In simple terms, just through a simple statement a salesperson can increase a company's revenue by selling additional items related to the primary sale.

Since this blog is about me and my experiences, here's whats gotten me all worked up. Recently I had the opposite experience of being sold something. I am a LinkDotNet ISP subscriber. It has the ugliest looking website for one, but hey the internet was fairly decent for the past year. It had its hiccups every now and then but I was fairly satisfied.

Then came the odd event, my phone line tone goes dead (those who live in Pakistan and have DSL know this to be a common occurrence). For some reason, some moron engineer in the exchange swaps out the phone line/configuration which causes the data/DSL to continue to work, but causes the voice service to go dead. FYI - Pakistan's phone lines are run by a monopoly called PTCL. It went through "privatization" a few years ago, which was marred by under hand deals and was sold to Etisalat, a UAE based telco. Lets just say, ME based firms arent really known for good governance, and selling a white elephant to a firm with weak governance background is a disaster recipe. Thank you Musharraf, you continue to haunt us!

Back to my story, I called up PTCL (the land line provider) and asked that they fix the dead tone, which they did pretty promptly. However my DSL stopped working as soon as they "fixed" my voice service. I then called up LinkDotNet assuming these guys would be able to get my DSL working even faster, after all they're a private company with lots of competition........ I was wrong. After a few days of following up, I was told to "go to the exchange, and get a written statement that your line needs to be shifted to our (LinkDotNet) switch". Hello? Are you in the 21st century. Me going to a telephone exchange, wasting my day trying to figure out who to speak to (PTCL probably has the highest ratio of employees to consumers - which happens when brain dead politicians rule and state owned monopolies exist).
I politely stated that hell would have to turn cold before I go to an exchange just for getting my Internet to work, after all I didnt have to go to an exchange when I signed up for LinkDotNet. They said its a PTA (regulatory body) regulation, to which I responded that the regulation (similar to how its in the US) is to ensure consumer rights. And its so that the DSL providers cannot be changed without getting the consumers consent. Since I've been on LinkDotNet for over a year, why should I be required to submit this paperwork - to the contrary they ought to complain to PTA about PTCL not providing them access to their consumer's telephone line.
I even went to the extent of emailing a C level officer at LinkDotNet, but havent heard back. I've tried my best to "educate" the CSR's at LinkDotNet about how they should facilitate their consumers by working with the telephone exchange directly and if any paperwork is needed, they should do so on their consumers behalf. All to no avail.

The subject of this post may make sense now, if McDonnalds introduced a great cross selling technique, LinkDotNet knows all about loosing consumers. I've decided to move on ...... to PTCL DSL! Yes, its bad of me to go to a monopoly, but hey they dont require me to visit any exchange. Just call 0800 80800 and you're done! Let this be a lesson to LinkDotNet, dont act like a monopoly if you're not!

Management Meetings

2010-05-11T23:09:00.000-07:00

I have a meeting with my direct reports once a week (managers and architects). Its a tradition I've been following for a number of years. Only recently have I had to think about its usefulness or possibly lack there of, given some interesting questions on its value raised by my business partner.

Since most businesses, specially mid to large size firms in the US, are guilty of having too many meetings, its a very important question one needs to ask and continue asking over time. Most firms did not start out with having half the working day wasted on meetings, they became that way because bit by bit the working sanity was lost and the environment evolved that way.

A number of executives and processes try to counter the culture of having too many meetings due to their impact on productivity. Some notable ones being:

A ticker in a meeting room showing the cost to the firm of having the individuals in one room and not doing "work". All attendants enter their calculated hourly salary as they enter the meeting and as soon as the figure hits a large threshold, the meeting needs to be disbanded.
People to remain standing ie the stand-up meeting. The reason being that people will get tiered quickly and would not want to extend the meeting any more than its actual usefulness.
Having a few days in the week as "no-meeting" days.
Getting employees to work from home on some days, goes to the previous point.
Resorting to asynchronous forms as primary modes of communication ie getting people to use IM, email or SaaS based sites like yammer.com since it does not break the thought momentum that someone may have when interrupted

That said, what are the positives of a meeting, specially that of a group that shares a common manager and little else (my current headache). So here goes:

Enables an agile organization capable of quick turnarounds to larger threats. Its important for individuals who are in mid management to have a context as to the challenges being faced across the firm. An agile organization is better driven in an environment where major problems relating to organizational opportunities and threats are known at most organizational levels. It allows for interesting and unique solutions to be thought out even before executives realize its a major problem.
Helps job satisfaction. Knowing you're part of the larger decision making, not only in your own team and department, but across the board helps increase employee morale.
Ensures a snapshot of the organization progress is known every week, which may be difficult to reach with one-to-one meetings with all reports. Broad meetings typically take precedence over a lot of other work which isnt the case with one-to-one meetings as they may frequently get cancelled or delayed due to impeding priority work.

That said, the pinch of salt being to keep such meetings under an hour. In the worst case if they do start getting boring, its not a huge burden. Another is to change the environment of the meetings every now and then, take the team out for a working lunch!

The Green Future

2010-02-22T02:26:00.000-08:00

For those of you who follow the venture capitalist, this may not come as news to you - the world needs an eco friendly energy source ASAP! I am pleasantly surprised as to the number of efforts involved in bringing this to fruition. The good news being they will make economic sense and will not just be sold to the environmentalist in us. Anything short of economic sense is just not viable at a mass scale, so I'm glad the industry is aware of this. Some of the interesting initiatives are given below:

1. Green revolution - Agriculture productivity is important, but agriculture based ethanol seems to be doomed since a significant portion of the world is still under the famine line.

2. Wind Turbines - Intermittent energy, and they occupy a lot of space and are known to produce sound pollution, which is an issue that can lead to extinction of certain breeds of animals from their habitat

3. Solar Panels - Intermittent energy, and just haven't delivered to date. And God knows the pollution they're causing somewhere in China where they're being manufactured on a mass scale!

4. Nuclear Power - The traditional nuclear power plant uses an extremely rare isotope, which makes waste disposal extremely complicated and political. The big jump in this industry will come from using the common isotope and thereby turn the waste of existing plants as its fuel! Check out Bill Gates talk at TED on the subject.

5. Energy Cells - check out the Bloom Box, as covered by 60 minutes.

In summary, a major (r)evolution in energy awaits us (it must, as there is little hope of a bright future in its absence). I get a warm and comfy feeling thinking about how cheap energy will convert our lives and make this a better place for us to live!

Children Growing up

2010-01-31T21:58:00.000-08:00

A major milestone for any parent. First day of school for their child!
I've just had mine start a few weeks ago, and its a life changer. From waking up early in the morning (I own up to pressing the snooze button on a daily basis and hence the reason for being late to office) to getting the child to do their homework.

But contrary to my expectations of "miserable school days", I'm actually loving it! Nothing beats seeing a child take up on learning and be excited about it. The only unfortunate taint to all this is the rat race that we set for ourselves. I need to keep reminding myself that I will NOT put a "parent of honor child" sticker on my car or push the child to "excel" in sports that I like rather than what he/she likes. Or so I will try!

iPhone and market creation

2009-07-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

So its old news now, but I got mine! Or was that a month ago, time does fly when you're having fun!

An iphone is no engineering revolution, the technologies used in it were not founded by Apple, they've existed prior to the iphone coming out. What apple was able to do was think out side the box and create something that created a market for its own, or how my business partner lovingly refers to his recently read book 'blue ocean strategy'. No sales person at nokia (the current king of cell phones) was screaming for such a device, or if he was then it wasnt loud enough.
Nokia's high-end phones are still clumpy compared to the iphone and even the newer android based HTC phones. This reminds me of a book I once read called 'the innovators dilemma '

From being a fan of nokia, I've gone to writing them off. And it does make me wonder how being part of a mid size software firm, we need to be thinking outside the box. Pushing all sacred limits. I'll post more on this later

In pursuit of perfection

2009-07-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

Why do some men go the extra mile and make sure their work is picture perfect? Thats a question thats kept me from sleeping tonight as I write this blog laying in bed. The related question being why do other men work as mules, requiring a whipping to complete and just barely makes the mark?

It is obvious that motivation plays a role, but something makes me doubt it as the key role. I've had work done by entrepreneurial mechanics (who own their shop, and I assume that should be motivation enough) and have been left pulling my hair at the outcome. Just recently did I get my 5KVa Enpower generator fixed by an independent mechanic/electrician. And its blowing smoke even though I specifically had its engine valve heads replaced. All that was required was for the moron to test run the generator and figure that it needs tuning, fixing, whatever but alas I ask too much of a mere mortal!

Sidenote: be warned, Enpower is the worst generator company out there ...if hell is hot and humid, its because AC's there dont have electricity as Enpower's probably provided the generators!

Or is it training? Can training be the differentiator between beauty and ugliness. Again, I had the sad experience of getting an AC installed by a crew that I am certain had training and plenty of experience. What I'm left seeing in shock is an AC thats tilted (the split's bracket was drilled in at an angle!). The electric wire crawls like a snake across the wall and black tape patches two wire pieces to increase the length for connecting to the power socket. And yet sadly they had done all the hard work of connecting the pipes and all. If only they had spent 10 minutes to make a clean finish, I'd remember them tonight as angels rather than bums.

So with a sleepy head, I conclude it must be the upbringing and environment! Humans are like chameleons and when surrounded by incompetence, they take it on as the gold standard. But when surrounded by excellence, they strive to go further than ever before.

I'm back!

2009-06-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Its been some time since i last blogged. The last few weeks being hectic would be an understatement. Getting involved in projects in a more tactical manner, children getting sick with flu and all sorts of things I never heard of before, hosting visitors, car accident ..... (and the list goes on).

But life is good and even when things seem to be getting a little too hectic, its important to appreciate the moment. From the Internally Displaced People (IDP's) of Swat/norther areas to those who have lost their jobs in the ongoing recession, its unnerving to know how easily one can be unemployed or underemployed.

That said, I am planning to return back to writing a few blogs every week. Its important!

Sidenote: If you're in the lahore region, you MUST try out Hyperstar (chain of Carrefour) in fortress. They're the first to truly bring out customer care concept in Lahore and possibly Pakistan. I've done a ton of shopping there and have returned a few items as well (which were either not working or not upto quality). It was a breeze doing so, specially in comparison to horribly return policies in chains like Makro etc, you know what I'm talking about!!

Ok, better get going and take my family out (for whats left of the weekend).

Doing OnLine Business

2009-02-22T03:29:00.000-08:00

Recently I had to setup an online business for someone, and I was blown away with how much can be done for free and with minimal technical expertise. The days when an online business setup required USD 30,000 or so are over. Today's the age of USD $20 businesses!

An online business is like any other form of business. There is a service or good thats sold, and customers that line up to consume them. For the brick and mortar business, the sayings goes "location, location and location" on the ability for it to be successful. Thats because most goods that are even half good can be sold if there are enough customers in the shop.

Similarly for web based business, the second step (I havent mentioned the first step yet, so dont worry) is community building. Entrepreneurs do this through a number of ways, which include:
1. Advertising their website over standard marketting mediums ie Print, TV, Billboards etc
2. SEO - search engine optimization. Trying to get google to list your website on the first page when a relevant search is done
3. Gureilla Marketting - Hiring a bunch of interns to spam the net with subtle messages that get users on other, but related sites, to come over to your site
4. Site kickstarting - hiring editors to post messages and make the site look active so as not to scare your first few customers from an empty looking shop!
5. Advertising using google adwords, facebook ads etc

Walking backwards, the first step is about getting a web presence. This is whats gotten me excited today:

1. Purchase a domain thats easy to remember and spell. GoDaddy sells domain for only $9.95
2. Second step, go to google apps and signup
3. Create your email address for the purchased domain using google apps. Gives a professional look to have a domain based email used across the site rather than one from gmail or hotmail.
4. Create a free webpage using google apps sites. The page is very basic, but sufficient to get a decent landing page for sending out feelers on whats about to come. Be careful not to reveal your "secret plans" to avoid someone from taking the wind out of your sails until you get the actual site up
5. Read the tutorial for drupal and make a decent looking site using plugins and themes. There are a number of hosting sites that do the hosting for USD 10 to USD 15. You should plan on a week to two for this.

I'll keep you posted on what else I learn as I help along on this business setup.

KISS - keep it simple STUPID!

2009-02-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

Usability is crucial for any application. Its becomes more so with web applications, since they're targeted for a userbase expected to have below college level education. This is great news for some of us who do have college level education as we can simply browse and not play mind games when we're focused on other matters.

For ages I've been in the enterprise development industry, and boy, are most applications there built to ensure that anyone who uses them needs to first read the big fat(!) manual (RTFM)! This of course is changing as most enterprise users now expect ease of use in the office that they've come to expect using facebook, gmail and yahoo at home.

Recollecting an old memory, I was consulting for a big health insurance firm on their web portal for their customers, and we hired a high flying security expert. I guess the expert wanted to justify his "expert" title, and came up with a list of eight (8) properties a password MUST have. I thought he was crazy, but as is the case with consultants, they do have a reputation to live up to. The health insurance firm played along, again I guess someone wanted to justify the cost of hiring the expert. And even during development of the application, I explicitly put in a hack for my password as I just couldnt remember a password with a number, a character, a capital and it being 9 letters long along with a number of other irritating requirements. And oh yes, if you forgot your password, the new one was mailed to you - No, not email, snail mail!!

I was glad I didnt have to log into that portal after I was done developing it, and truly feel sorry for its customers. But a few months ago, the password over-engineering zeal came back to bite me. It wasnt some web banking application, it was ..... delicious !!! Yahoo has been the forerunner in usability, but I guess after their acquisition of delicious, they just couldnt beat enough sense into them.

Here are two screen shots that explain everything.

The above given screen shot shows the crazy password rules for delicious. What were they thinking!! All my URL's are public anyway, its not as if a compromise of my account will suddenly leave me penniless or open them up for liabilities.

The next screen shot has its own humor:

See where is says "keep me signed in for 2 weeks". Hello ...I dont work for NSA, FBI or CIA. I want to remain logged in for ever and ever and ever. If I ever throw away my laptop, I'll format the drive so please keep me loggggeeeeddd in!

Enough of a rant, I've taken action. Moved over to twine, at least their password policy is good. Lets see how their features are. I'm going to miss delicious in the end, if it wasnt for some security wannabe jerk because of whom I had to click on the forgot password after every 2 weeks, I'd still be a user!

For Humility

2009-01-19T23:43:00.000-08:00

I recently came across the following blog post: http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/11/1771, which had the following concluding paragraph:
"Focusingon important questions puts us in the awkward position of beingignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is thatit allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time,and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time.No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomedto getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels ofconfidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientificeducation might do more to ease what is a very big transition:from learning what other people once discovered to making yourown discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid,the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likelywe are to make big discoveries."

To me the importance of being humble just cannot be overstated, to understand that at no point in our lives do we stop learning, implying that at no point in our lives are we the "know all".

A personel story of mine relates to this, that being that once I found myself working with bodyshop contractors in the US during the 2000 dot com boom. These guys were real knuckleheads ...the kind of developers who need guidance in writing a simple regular expression parser etc. Working with them had the strange effect on me where I became extremely overconfident. There was no problem I thought I couldnt do and no issue where I could ever be wrong. I learnt the least during this phase of my career. Then I jumped boats and joined one of the leading tech firms in the US, and was I in for a surprise. I suddenly found myself surrounded with the best minds in tech, and my confidence completely shattered. And I loved it ...it was liberating to know that there is so much to learn and so much to do.

And that experience keeps me going today too, whereby I have a large body of techy's reporting to me, when most engineers do not argue against my point of view, I know its either because I havent done my job in hiring the best minds or that I've set the wrong precedence for anticipations in such meetings.

Emotional Emails

2009-01-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

When I get emotional I can almost feel my brain shutting down (the thinking part of it). Its a pity that strong emotions force me in a primate like state and throw away all the effort the human race spent in its evolution. However, it gives me some comfort to see I'm not the only one who has this issue, and so here's my tip to responding to an email in the morning that gets you all emotional and angry:

Steps to take after reading an extreme email that gets steam coming out of your ears:

1. Cool off before doing anything - walk around if required for a few seconds
2. Re-read assuming you're someone else
3. Write a respond but do NOT send
4. Cool off for another few seconds, walk around etc
5. Read other emails to make sure there isnt a followup to it or another response
6. Reread your draft response. If it doesnt sound too emotional (business communications should be void of there), then hit the send button!

Happy mornings to you!

Number Juggling

2009-01-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Satyam's in the news for carrying out a whooping 1 BILLION USD fraud, in a company with revenue of approx 2 billion USD ie 50% of the revenue amount now being reported off the cash reserves! Guess who their financial auditors are, none other than PWC!
The problems of financial misreporting are not new, neither in developed or emerging markets. Whats concerning to me is why a CEO was allowed so much power to have reported these numbers without anyone of his VP's stepping up to stop him. Are companies so blind to the CEO's acts that such illegalities are done without fear.

On a personal note, I've always erred towards caution to avoid getting caught up in such misreporting (not that I havent ever fallen trap in one of these though). The golden rule of "if it sounds too good to be true, then its likely not true", the one I like and have been saved from the following scams using this principle:

Investing in the summer home scam - the one where you were shown videos of the high life and asked to invest a few thousand dollars to avail residence in a million dollar home during your summer vacations.
Getting membership to Quixtar/Amway/MLM - they sell dreams to the "business partners", not a compelling business strategy. There is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme, specially when its being sold to a huge number of individuals.
Futures - CMC markets (UK) or others out there that get individuals to invest around 10K USD in futures by leveraging the said amount on price differentials. Yes, the possibility of becoming a millionaire looks to be a reality, but the likelihood of getting a quick loss of your invested amount seems more likely.
You've just won a million billion dollars - calls/voicemails/emails/sms's etc. Need i say more on this!

That said, there are times when an opportunity comes knocking, and a certain risk has to be taken. But all in all, one's brain must assess if real value is being created without breaking laws. (assuming both explicit and the unlegislated rules of ethics). The key being short term artificial gains are easy to make while long term it's nearly impossible to keep the castle standing if its built on quick sand.

Employee Reviews and Grading Medians

2009-01-04T23:27:00.000-08:00

I've been reviewing employees using a certain grading system for some time now. I belong to the school of thought that ascribes to "tough love", ie grading systems should be anything but lenient. So for a grading system that rates out 5, the following is the criteria:

(1)Very poor job: Need to be caught sleeping more than once on the job to get this!
(2)Poor job: Not satisfied with the performance
(3)Meets job requirements: Typical grade for a ok job done
(4)Above Average: When there is something really good about how the job was done (expect around 10% of the employee base to be here)
(5)Exceptional: If I somehow hired James Gosling who rewrote the whole corporate strategy! (extra credit - dont expect anyone to be here unless they're a class apart)

So during December's review cycle, I got hit by a thought - why must I always have to argue with employees who claim they've earned a "4" when I'm giving them a "3.5" or so. To me a number like 3.5 is good, but to a majority its poor and they walk away from a review demoralized. Since I've worked in larger organizations where a standard is followed and any issues are to be taken up with HR, I've never thought on this much. But now, working in a smaller organization gives a whole new meaning when I see a majority thats demoralized.

Thought: Should grading be lenient
Advantages
1. Everyone comes out as a winner - We live in a society where every other parent has a "proud parent of an honor student" sticker on their car's bumper (not in Pakistan as yet, but the mindset is the same). Its not possible for all students to have become smart, lowering of the grading system and instilling this thought in the masses is a far more likely cause. Why swim against the tide?
2. Motivated employee base - the purpose of a review is to improve employee productivity IMHO. It requires that we identify the shortcomings and highlight the positives. However if the end grade is considered demeaning we can forget about a motivated and hence a productive employee base (outside of the 10% employees who get 4 or over).
3. Easier time for the grader - we too are human beings and arguing takes out our positive energy. Trying to argue with someone on why its not a low grade but how its a decent grade leaving room for improvements until the next review sometimes feels like a bad hair day!

Cons:
1. Incorrect messaging - It is important for individuals to understand they have shortcomings. A high grade may misguide an employee into a comfort zone where only larger trouble lays ahead, either for the employer or the employee.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether my grading system should be changed such that a 5 stands for a very good job rather than exceptional with appropriate adjustments to the other numbers.

2009 - Qualities to Wish For!

2008-12-31T21:39:00.001-08:00

First posting of 2009, and its so cliche to be posting my resolutions for the coming year(s). Though there is a twist to it, they're not new year resolutions but more than that. They're my envy list of the qualities I wish I had. Without further adieu:

1. Dedication to Work - My work pays for my bills (religious beliefs aside for a moment, and even with them there is a need to "earn" one's livelihood). Yet sometimes I get the feeling I'm not as dedicated as I should be, and with some bright examples of individuals who're always a few minutes early to office, complete all their work and then every now and then even respond to queries off hours.
2. Hours of Sleep - a 24 hour day is just too small if one spends 10 hours in bed and getting ready. Ten is probably the time I take in terms of sleeping, getting ready for work and then before getting to sleep. I wish I was one of those individuals who could sleep 5 hours and get ready in 30 mins (including a breakfast on the go).
3. Memory - I hate having to dig up my notes just to confirm what was exactly said in a meeting three months back. If only I could have a photographic memory spanning multiple months (or years as a special bonus).
4. Fair - In management, decisions are made on a daily basis that impact the lives and quality of life of others. It may be a small decision for a manager to take, but a huge one for the employee. I hope my decisions to date have been just and fair, and the ones I make in the future are even more rational along with being just and fair.
5. Communication - The ability to communicate clearly is never really achieved. Theres always room for improvement. And in my case, along with a sizeable portion of individuals, we have a long long way to go.
6. Health - must not end up in the ER with a heart attack! Should run 5K twice a week! Wishful thinking on my part.

Mobilink - Horrible Customer Relationship Management

2008-11-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

Mobilink is the largest mobile service provider in Pakistan, although its quickly been loosing its market share to its competitors (Ufone, Warid, Telenor and Zong). If I were to analyze mobilink, here are my thoughts:

1. Slow mover. They've been around for the longest time. They were successful in out smarting Paktel and some other company - but it was an easy win given the lack of decent management in any one of those firms.
But even with this advantage, they've been caught with their pants down ever since the new telco's arrived in Pakistan. Their customer base was just itching to jump ship and couldnt be more glad with competition arriving
2. Good enterprise penetration. This is probably the only plus for mobilink as they've managed to hold on to the enterprise market. But slowly and surely, their higher rates and lack of good customer service will catch up
3. Quality and Coverage. Their call quality and coverage isnt all that great, but hey neither is that of the others - so not much competition!
4. GPRS/Edge. Telenor's the clear leader in launching of edge services, but mobilink does seem to have awaken to the need. They're still playing catch up though
5. Blackberry. Mobilink was first to launch exclusive blackberry service and held the monopoly in Pakistan for some years. Only recently has Ufone entered this market. I'm not a crackberry person, so not something I get high on

6. Little connection with the young crowd. My firm deals with a certain telco product and so I know from at least some data that we have that mobilink has lost the touch with the younger crowd. Its a matter of time before this crowd gets into the enterprise and drive out mobilink from there as well!An Advertisement by mobilink - better spend the money upgrading that CRM!

In the end, if you're wondering why I decided to leave, well I got a call barring error one fine day while making an international call. Since I've been a mobilink post-paid user for 3 years, I thought it must be some mistake. But to my surprise on calling their helpdesk I was told to increase my security (I used a CC, so all they had to do was get pre-authorization on it), but to treat a premium user who has paid his bills for 3 years on time like this just made my blood boil.
I got hold of the supervisor, gave him a good lecture on customer service and he had my international dialing turned on in a few hours.
Then a few days later I get a call from a mobilink agent asking me to verify:
1. My name
2. My NIC
3. Other numbers being used in the house
4. Other telco providers whose SIM was being used in my family (I told the agent to mind their business on that one)
5. Address

Then a few hours later, their courier came by to verify the home address in person AND got my NIC number as well.

A few days later, I get a call by another mobilink CSR asking the SAME questions. I was a little perturbed but cooperated. Then a few days later my international dialing gets turned off again! I call the helpdesk only to find out that the PTCL number I had on file could not be verified. Well, the morons in PTCL had equally lousy service and so i decided to stop paying my bills to them. And since when is there a requirement to have a working PTCL (Land line) number to get a cell? I'm told by mobilink its a PTA requirement??. Anyhow I ask that next time they feel like disconnecting my service they should atleast call and inform me before carrying the disconnection out. In case you're wondering I gave them my office PTCL and got international dialing enabled.

Ahh - I wish that were the end, but then I get a call a few days back by mobilink asking the SAME questions. I was fuming and told the lady to type in "customer refuses to answer the same questions he's answered twice already. If the CRM does not work, then its not the customers fault. There ought to be laws against such harrasments!". Anyway, the courier guy came to my house after a few hours and I sent my house maid to sign off on the letter attesting I lived in the house.
Then today I figured my international calling was disconnected AGAIN!! So I've gone to ufone and gotten my number transferred and am now going to campaign for others to do the same!

Economic slump, Hyper Inflation and Possible Fears - Pakistan

2008-11-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

For the past few months we here in Pakistan have experienced a lot. From a rapid devaluation of the Rupee (30%), frequent power outages, terrorism and then economic slow down. What we have NOT experienced is a responsible fiscal policy by the current PPP government.
Pakistan, as is the rest of the world, going through troubled financial times. The processed goods sector here, which is the textile industry given its single largest share in exports, has taken a huge hit. Europe and the US are all going through "shrinkages" in economies leaving retail vendors there to be extremely price sensitive in addition to a reduced turnaround in sales. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
The software export industry (offshore software firms) was probably a couple hundred million, maximum a billion. The too may shrink due to the hit enterprise focused firms have taken since a lot of them have shut down (I've heard Fannie May and Freddie Mac had some software components being built out of Pakistan). Although a number of commentators have speculated that offshoring may grow due to this downturn for cost saving reasons, I'm beginning to speculate it will grow as a percentage but will shrink in absolute terms.
Agriculture, this is probably the most painful topic. Pakistan being an agriculture based economy has the dumbest minds focused on increasing the productivity. From the feudals who own the lands, the politicians responsible for the relevant ministries to the "scientist" involved in tactical matters. We've had GM seeds grown here without any prior impact analysis. We've used pesticides without concern for environmental impacts. We've created a system where large land owners (read feudals), get prefrential treatment even though agriculture output from their lands is lowest in terms of output/hecter (need to verify this statement!). And then water shortage in this area thanks to India and power shortages in running tube wells.

This leaves little breathing space for a government known more its lack of competence and merit (read part about giving government jobs on nepotism!). If Hyperinflation sets in, it will impact:

Money holding costs - holding onto cash is a costly and risky proposition, thereby forcing individuals and firms to be nonliquid- from the frying pan to the fire.
Large risk premiums to cater to unknown inflation rates - causes inefficiency in the system
Misallocation of input and output goods - again causes high inefficiency in the system
Contineous adjustment costs - hiring/firing, changing listed prices and misc activities to publish price change

*Read more on such costs from here.

Now that Pakistan's gotten a few Billion (7) from IMF, it must act quickly to announce a strategic economic growth plan. Otherwise we're just waiting for the sky to fall in a few months once the temporary relief from the loan dies down.

Weekend Movie - Idiocracy

2008-10-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

One movie to watch if you're interested to know how the current presidency and PM's cabinet work in Pakistan under Zardari and Gillani, check out: Idiocracy

Maybe its all just a bad dream and I'll wake up to find that Pakistan is being run by smart, honest and intelligent individuals.
Anyhow, it brings goosebumps to my neck to even think about an organization being run by such folks (see the movie on the makeup of the cabinet), and to try to take this in a more positive way, how to ensure that only the talented and deserving are promoted to take on leadership roles. Are there tell tale signs of smooth talkers who take credits of others and are the perfect examples of parasites? If so, I'm all ears!

Bad hair doesnt make for a genius

2008-10-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

The Western world is not the only one with short sighted executives running their major financial institutes into the ground. We here in Pakistan, all too foolishly assume anyone with a Citi Group, IMF or WorldBank experience is a genius capable of converting a third world country like ours into an Asian Tiger (ok, that phrase is so 90's).

Our very own Shaukat Aziz proved how corporate bankers make for lousy economist and country development strategist. Under Shaukat Aziz, the country was converted into a credit junkey nation that was driven by consumerism. Hmm, wonder why he pushed the country there ....wait a minute, wasn't he posted in nyc and assumed the cause for the great US economy to be its symptoms. Its like extrapolating from Einstin pictures that anyone with crazy hair is a genios, and enforcing all men to have crazy hair!

So to stop myself from getting back into memory lane and mentioning all that I believe to have been wronged by incompetence in the political arena here, let me get to the reason why I'm posting today.
I got a call from my credit card bank ie Askari Bank, to take out a loan on low interest rate! What?? The global economy is crashing, ours probably crashed eons ago ...and a bank wants to offer me money with no collateral! Too bad I cannot short their stocks as the genius's in Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange thought it best to shut the house down indefinitely through the use of floors. Must be "genius" season world-wide!