I PUBLISH, THEREFORE I AM

Safe secure and sure - really?

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 21:22:00 +0000

It’s been a really sad week for me and a lot of my friends. Although, totally expected, some changes are just hard to digest. Over the past few weeks, I’ve learnt a lot of things, and the funny part is that it is less to do with work and more to do with life. I am going to dispense some really (supposedly) profound stuff now:

· You are expendable. It doesn’t matter if you are the best player in the game, sometimes, you are just not required.

· A vision is based on intuition, it is not something that totally runs on facts. It is just hard to say, I am sure about “blah”. Time and again, humans have proved and disproved themselves. In a way, it’s just hard to be sure about anything.

· When in pressure, people start thinking that life is a race and it’s just too bad to be left behind. However, life doesn’t run that way (but yeah! I am not sure about how it does). Too bad, we don’t understand this when we are under stress.

· You need people. No one ever got saved or got ahead or got behind without people.

· Hear both side of the stories before you form an opinion - If two guys have a fight, don’t listen to one guy and form an opinion about the other guy. If we both have a fight, I’ll can prove that you were wrong and you too can prove that I was wrong.

· If you think you are secure with your job/health/friends, then you are very wrong. Your job can leave you tomorrow, your heart can ditch you tomorrow and your beloved can dump you tomorrow. You don’t have to be scared of this, you just need to acknowledge this.

· There is no such thing called safe. You are not safe doing whatever is that you are doing. Things go wrong overtime (not overnight), but still the change happens overnight.

· Everything is personal. If something pinches you, it is personal.

· “Everything is for the good”, try saying that to a person who has experienced something really bad. And then, go to a doctor to get one of your eyes fixed.

· People move on, so too we. And, it is better if we move-on quickly.

· If you were living a lie for a few years, then the lie is still a lie after a few years. It’s better to end the relationship with that lie than to continue living the lie.

· We were wrong. Sometimes, we were really really wrong. But again, too bad, we don’t realize or accept this.

· One last thing: love it and live it till the end. It doesn’t matter if the other party didn’t love you back in the end. They say “It’s better to have loved and failed, than to have not loved at all”. This saying makes me feel sick, but it’s very true.

All in all, don’t really buy the idea safe, secure, and sure. Now that I know that things can go wrong at any moment, I am worried about it; but all of a sudden, I am a bit relaxed coz I’ve understood that I can’t do anything about it. I can’t change the situation, I can only change the way I react to the situation.

Ok then! I feel ill, it’s 3 in the morning, let me try and get a few hours of sleep. Good morning.

Before you take the alternative

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 26 May 2012 07:01:00 +0000

They say, you have not lost until you have accepted defeat. True. But, this is what some of us hear: You haven't lost if you did not accept the defeat, that is, if you did not care about the defeat and got satisfied with something else that offers you a somewhat similar feeling of having won. Basically, you moved on to something that looks like winning.

We get settled for something other than what we truly want, thinking that the alternative is going to be as good; but, it hardly ever does...by the way, if you know what you truly want, you are one of the privileged, coz a lot of us don't really know what we truly want. And, if you don't know what you want, great! you can be exploring all the time. But anyways, choosing an alternative is not always a good thing to do. It's like having a map and knowing that we have to go STRAIGHT, but still we take a LEFT for some reason. Sad news! we'll have to take a U-TURN somewhere down the line to be able to come to the path we first left. We just postpone our struggle by taking a LEFT, the remaining struggle is due on a later date when we are asked to take the U-TURN. So, either you can postpone the struggle or you can struggle now. The Oracle tells me that NOW is better.

If you have failed now, then you have two options: take the alternative that is somewhat similar to what you truly want or try again. Decide!

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

The difference between chimps and humans = The difference between the blond and the genius

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:25:00 +0000

Chimps and humans are one at the same, 99% of the DNA matches.

I was thinking, if 99% of a chimp is human, or if we are 99% chimps; how are we so different from chimps? Actually, we claim that chimps are so much less intelligent than humans because of this 1% difference in DNA. Such a huge difference is credited to that 1% difference. Extrapolating the proven science to a general world (in a really freaky way): the super-intelligent humans are 99% the same as the not-so-intelligent/normal humans, and it tells me that the last 1% gain pretty much changes the whole paradigm.

That's probably why people say that they need great people on the job (the keyword is 'great'). We cannot differentiate what's mediocre from what's good (unless we keenly look for the difference), but we can easily differentiate what's good from what's truly great.

For instance, say you and I listen to music for entertainment. We won't be able to tell the difference between what's a good song and what's a mediocre song (but, the guys in the music industry can tell the difference coz they know music really well), but, if we both sit and listen to Beethoven (something great) and something good, I am almost sure that we will be able to feel how good Beethoven's music is.

In reality, something that's good and something that's great are 99% the same. Damn! that great musician perfected his art just 1% more than the other musicians, and that was good enough to wipe out everything on the way.

Why the kid did not do well in exams

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:48:00 +0000

I see some parents talking about their kid not doing well in academics. And the worst part is that they try to find solutions from others in the society without understanding the real problem at hand. As usual, the society has a very generic answer for this. The answer to this is not generic, it is very specific to every child and that's what people need to realize. Here is an example to help you understand this better:

Case: A boy doesn't study well, and does really bad in his tests.

Problem: Did not study well.

Solution: Tell him to put more hours. Make a strict schedule for the kid and make him follow that.

Result: Still doesn't get good marks in the tests. (he probably got nervous during the exams or he was not able to retain all that he supposedly learnt)

This is why!

The *real* problem (maybe): the kid doesn't want to study, that is, he is simply not interested in academics

Solution (maybe): Make studies interesting for the kid. (certainly, there are ways to make learning interesting)

Result: problem solved (it's very unlikely that he won't get good marks, but even then, you can be sure that he has learnt all that he was supposed to)

By the way, there is one more thing to remember: a problem isn't really a problem unless you have a solution for it. So, for your kid's sake, don't go with a generic solution (coz that's not the real solution).

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Guys in their 20s and 30s need this, they really do

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:02:00 +0000

A nice chair.

Yes! a really nice chair is one of the best investments at home. We sit all the times and our back is always on some stress because our chair isn’t ergonomically good. A really nice chair feels comfortable and corrects your poster through your 20s and if you see, most of us start getting old during our 20s.

I have never seen people worry about where they sit and how comfortable the chair is. We are really used to giving stress to our back, and anything that accommodates our ass is considered as a good chair. We are used to mediocrity and to mediocre devices (not just chairs).

So, it’s a no brainer...you spend most of your day sitting on your chair, you should spend thousands of rupees (if you earn decent) to get a really nice chair. You will thank me when you are 40, when your friends who-did-not-buy-a-nice-chair have terrible back-aches and you don’t. It seems like a long shot but definitely a done deal.

PS: I learnt it the hard way. But, better late than never. I am going to buy a really comfortable chair very soon.

When people ask "What do you do"

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:14:00 +0000

We get asked “what do you do” a lot of times (assuming we meet new people every now and then). And if you notice, we all have a template-answer for this (usually, a boring or a dry one). I am not really sure if people are just being nice by asking “what do you do”, maybe it’s just a small talk. But when someone asks me such a question, I take it seriously and I try to tell them exactly what I do in a way they’ll best understand. Also, I never ask people “what do they do” unless I am really interested…so, I expect a good answer for this question.

Whether or not “what do you do” is just a small talk, in this networked world we meet a lot of new people and having a good reply to “what do you do” can make you the guy who people genuinely remember (I am bad with names…so, I tag what a person does to his/her name. That’s the best way I remember names).

I think, a good answer to “what do you do” can get you a job, a reference, a gig or even a girlfriend. Now, it’s up to you to take that question seriously or just let it be.

How to make your kids eat what you plan to prepare

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 06 May 2012 03:59:00 +0000

Actually, not just kids, even adults. It's a universal protocol for a mom to ask her kids what they would like to eat before preparing the meal. But, (sometimes) mom's have already made up their mind on what-to-prepare even before asking their kids what they'd like to eat. If you (mom/dad) want your kid to eat what you plan to prepare (usually, a healthy dish that your kid hates) then keep the following in mind:

Don't ask your kid what he'd like to eat, something like "Do you want iddly for breakfast?" (assuming your kid hates iddly, he is definitely going to say "no" to iddly and probably would ask for maggi). Instead give him options and ask him what he'd like to eat. You'll see that once you give him options, he will decide what he wants based only-on-those options and not based on his likes.

Now that you have narrowed down his choices; if you want him to eat iddly, figure-out what is worse than iddly in your kid's mind...that is, what other options can you give your kid that can make iddly look like the best option. Something like, "Do you want iddly or uppma or salads for breakfast?" (assuming your kid considers uppma and salads as the worst dishes of all times). Finally, you'll see that iddly looks like the best option and your kid is definitely going to go with iddly.

L.H.S=R.H.S (Hence proved)

I think, this is the best way to sell to your kids, even adults. Give them the option you want them to pick with the options they hate (once you give options, people think in relative terms and not in actual terms). They will pick your options for sure. It's win-win situation, the kid got what he wanted and you got to prepare what you had in mind. Bingo!

Try it and let me know if it works for you! My mom has been doing this for the last 25 years, it sure worked for her when dealing with me, my brother, and (may be) my dad :-D.

UPDATE: hireananny.com contacted me to inform me about this brilliant piece of text about how kids make a decision. It's like game theory for kids. Thanks, Sandra.

Bad-ass decision making

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:38:00 +0000

When making a decision, the right thing to do is to be a bad-ass and openly tell things that can influence the decision making process. If you don’t ask or give a perspective, the final decision might bomb because you did not participate that well. And, you won’t even get to say “I told you”.

Don’t blame the decision maker for the bad decisions, instead, blame the team for not having contributed enough to force-out a wrong decision from being finalized. So, if you think something is a bad idea or a good idea, say it right then! It doesn’t matter if you are truly influential, all that matters is your contribution in the decision making process. Some people just think that their ideas can't influence others, they are wrong; a good idea will definitely influence the decision maker sometime now or definitely later. There are a lot of things that come to our mind when making/taking a decision, like, hurting someone by shooting down their idea, modifying someone’s idea to someone else’s liking, relating someone’s actual invention to a duplicate of another invention, saying no to what others like, saying yes to something that everyone dislikes etc.

Normally, these things seem harsh and cruel. But in reality, it is the (so-called) right thing to do. And this is exactly why you need to be a bad-ass to make the right decisions.

Make your friends write a review - they are your best advertisers

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:49:00 +0000

I just realized that if you are a writer planning on publishing your first book, then the best advertisers you should rely on would be your friends. If you can just convince your friends to review the book and talk about it in their networks, it will be good enough for you to get the kind of visibility you (a first-time author) need.

I (we all) have friends, and yes you are right! Friends don’t usually entertain all this…some of your friends wouldn’t even like your work irrespective of how good or bad it is. I am not talking about the friends who you are pally-pally with or who you are sleeping with J. I am talking about the friends who truly do the kind of work/thing you are writing about, and it is almost impossible for you to not find these people because if you are writing about a work/thing, you’ll probably know some exceptional people in the field. Worst comes to worst, if you don’t have that kind of friends, you should try to make some thru online social networks.

Make your friends write a review. That’s the best advertisement you, a first time author, can get. As of now, I am a theorist, I haven’t experienced this, but I plan on experiencing it pretty soon. I got influenced by a research paper on What makes a critic tick. After finishing the research paper, my conclusion was that friends are the best advertisers for a first-time writer.

Announcement: if you don't have control over a situation, let it be

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:06:00 +0000

If there was an announcement that can hurts us (even remotely), some of us get into the paralysis-analysis phase, that is, we start dissecting the text of the announcement to such an extent that if the announcer heard about it, he would ROFL thinking about what all people are thinking. By the way, you should know this, some announcements are just straight-to-the-point and there is nothing to read between the lines. All in all, when you think something is going to hurt you, the whole world seems like some shitty place to live and you don’t feel right about anything.

But, very few think about: What’s next, what got us here, what lead us to this, why did we not see this coming, and all that. Coz, if something is just determined to hurt you, it will and thinking about it won't change a thing (I think, you know this)…this reminds of what I told a friend, “It doesn’t matter if you have a 5-lever or a 10-lever lock. If a robber is really determined to rob your place, you will be robbed”. That’s that; The truth of the matter is, if you don’t have control over a situation, let it *just* be (says, a beetle fan J). If you are supposed to get hurt, you (definitely) will.

In my opinion, nothing is all of a sudden. It was blowing in the wind all the time (says, a Dylan fan J).

You decide what's fun

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:11:00 +0000

It’s up to you to decide if you want to have fun or not. Most of the times, it’s not the circumstances but you who decides when to and when not to have fun. I’ve noticed that I’ve not gone to some really fun places, coz at that moment I did not feel like it and not because I had work or some other *blah* activities. On a similar note, I have gone to places that are not-so-much-fun and that I consider a waste of time, but at that moment I had a feeling that it’s going to be fun, so, I went for it, and indeed, had fun.

Thou shall have fun whenever thou feel like! simply coz we define what’s fun. It doesn’t matter if your fun-to-be-with friends are going to some heaven on earth, you don’t have to go for it if you are not in the right mood for it, coz in such cases, you are most likely to end up not-having-fun as your mood has already decided that it’s not going to be fun. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, even Paris won’t look beautiful to you if you are not in the right mood and if you don’t see it the way other guys (in the mood) do. You get it! the place-the people-the timing are secondary, it’s up to you to decide what’s fun and what’s not (that is, your mode is primary).

PS: BTW I really like schedules and routine. Some people hate a routine life, but I actually form a routine not out of compulsion but by choice. Even guys who like a routine (like me) can disrupt their routines at-times coz I’ve seen that even without following the status quo, everything outside of it gets easily accommodated. Simply put, having fun whenever you feel like doesn’t break your routine. And to add to that, let me tell you that as you grow up, most of you won’t feel like having fun all the time.

Are you thinking of getting a job or a bike or a girl

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:01:00 +0000

What's wrong with the title is that it makes a girl look like some kind of a commodity. But in reality, the writer might have simply meant "a girl to spend time with or chat with". The funny thing is that in the online (social) world, we are entitled to our interpretation (and, opinions to some extent). I see people share messages on email, Facebook, Twitter (especially, twitter) and I see that a lot of general-people/advertisers/marketers succeed in terms of audience engagement and visibility. But (sometimes) everything goes waste because the wrong message is communicated to the audience.

Before, it took a lot of time and effort to reach a lot of people; so, back then, reaching people was a marketer's main problem. Now, if you have just 10 acquaintances to work on an advertising campaign, you have a minimum of 10*500= 5000 friends/audience to cater to (thanks to social media, reaching people has become considerably easy). So, you gotta make sure that the right message goes out to your audience (now, communicating the message is a marketer's main problem). When doing publicity, stress on the message, not on how you reach people.

PS: I am doing publicity along with a couple of friends (on THE social network). We seem to have been doing really well because we are stressing on what kind of message is going out to our audience and to the most part, not really stressing on how it's been shared or how many people have read what we want them to read.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Identifying crap is a good skill, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:30:00 +0000

We all know that everything improves overtime. We find people talking, at work, about what is crappy and what needs to improve. No offence, but when you say something needs to improve, it doesn’t improve unless it directly hits your/your-colleague’s work. Take for instance, how long have we been saying that the political system needs to improve…what happened? it doesn’t work that way coz political system improvements don’t directly hit our work (it is more like a passing reference). If we can devise a solution for it and get it implemented by the people whose jobs are directly hit by the improvements in the political system (that is, the business men and the political party members) then there is a possibility of improvement.

Anyways, coming back to our point. It’s great to have employees point out “what is crappy”; because identifying crap is a good skill (now-a-days, people have learnt to live with crap, and what’s crappy in general seems normal to many), but, make sure you encourage employees to not just complain or grieve upon some bad-to-mediocre work, instead ask them to give a way out. It is great to point out a problem, but no one is more enthusiastic about solving your problems than you; so, you gotta give a way to solve it.

Embrace demos, proposals, and proof-of-concepts at work. The proof is in the pudding. So, show me how to improve, and don’t just tell me that we need to improve.

Mistaking it for real romance

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Some times you want to romance (some thing) really bad and you want it as soon as possible. It's great to have something like this for a while because it adds juice to your life (the keyword here is "for a while"). For instance, learning dance for a few weeks, joining an adventure club, interacting with a random girl and getting responses from her, and doing an (so-called stupid) art of living course...really adds juice to our lives (for a while) and we feel like we are ALIVE. And slowly, we end up liking these things and we do them only to make sure there is something different going on in our lives and that we have something to look forward to (on a regular basis).

But some of us just mistake this for real romance. Sooner or later you understand that you are not really good at romance. It's not you, it's just that you have the wrong person in bed/office/college/school/stage or whatever. For instance, we all like writing, but most of us don't know what all writing is all about. The more you get to know about writing, the more you'll see the crappy-ness in it and unconsciously you'll start hating it, but you'll still be convincing yourself that you loved it back then and you still love it (you are living in denial). Same thing with photography, don't we just love to see DSLR clicked snaps, but you'll see that in the first 3 months we click 5000 photos and in the next 3 years, we click only 50 photos. So, you get the drift?

Romance the right things...you know what I am talking about (No! not porn, that's awesome (for a while) but for once, I am talking about the real romance). If you are doing something that you loved for a while and you mistook it for the love of your life, it's time you changed things. The wild romance doesn't just happen in the first 3 months; its gotta last longer.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Poor sensitive people in the insensitive world

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:21:00 +0000

Most of us have heard this: you are so insensitive. This is because it is just impossible to be sensitive to issues that we don’t consider important or we don’t consider it to be a big deal.

Being sensitive is a very good thing. As a matter of fact, even the most insensitive guys (usually guys in their early 20s) like sensitive people (usually girls in their early 20s). The fact that someone is really bothered because of a stain on their cloth is just dumb for guys, and they would not entertain this stupid thinking or try to understand the women who has a stain in her cloth. The women feels really uncomfortable, as uncomfortable when guys see a big dent in their bikes after parking it in a safe parking area.

I just had a long 3 hour chat with a friend and I found that some issues don’t seem sensitive, but in reality are very very sensitive. And, unless you hear the person’s feelings and be receptive for an hour, you won’t be able to understand how sensitive the issue is. Frankly, some of us are freaking insensitive, for some of us the life-threatening issues seem like a piece of cake, but for others even small issues may seem as life-threatening (may be, I am saying small issue because I consider it to be a small issue; that is, maybe it is really a life-threatening issue).

We are living in a insensitive world. So, let’s change. Let’s be sensitive (or to start with, let’s just pretend to be sensitive), hear what the other person has to say. Let’s not treat people recklessly, at work or at home.

What, how, why...then ask, why like this

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:37:00 +0000

At times, we see/hear/feel something and we think “oh my god! I have experienced that, but, back then, I never thought about it this way”. This is why we have such a feeling: We care about what we are doing, how we are doing, and why we are doing it. But, we care very little about why is it that we are doing it this way. Once you find the meaning to that; you understand why is it the best way of doing that thing, or you figure-out how to change or modify that way to suite your work.

Especially, at work, you’ll see that a lot of us don’t ask why-like-this and some of us don’t even ask why-this. This is just sad. By the way, if you want to change and start asking these questions, just remember that nobody is going to notice this change in you and over a period of time, asking these questions will become a habit (which is great!).

We usually get an answer to why-like-this very late in our lives. That’s exactly why we get the feeling I was talking about in the first line. I think, it’s better to have this question in mind for all the important things we do on a regular basis. Therefore, don’t just do it, don’t just know why you are doing it, try to find out why is it that you are doing it that way.

Once decided, it's not ok to think

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:35:00 +0000

If you have decided that you have 100 problems to solve in the next week and that it is the priority, thinking about its importance is one of the crucial things preventing you from getting it done.

When you get to work, you don't think about how many problems you are going to finish at one sitting, or if it's a right time to sit and do the problems or what is the best time of the day to do the problems. The activity isn't a marathon, it's a one week drill and you gotta sprint whenever you have time. Therefore, whenever you are not sleeping/eating/shitting, you've got to be solving some of those 100 problems. If you rationalize and (again) give yourself time to think about how important it is to do those problems...blah blah blah; You will not get started or you will not get the momentum to do the 100 problems in a week.

So, don't give yourself time to rationalize, just take up the problem as you get to work. Think twice/thrice before deciding, but don't think again once decided. Rationalizing or thinking about what's already decided makes you confused and the importance of that job decreases the more you think about how-important-is-this-job; coz if it were really important, you wouldn't be perpetually thinking about its importance.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Did not feel like following the usual to-do list, therefore...

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 06:37:00 +0000

...I did not. I just went with the flow, which I usually don't. I think, at times, we do what we don't really believe in, and it's just fine to switch sides for a day (and not feel terrible about it the next day).
Also, when you do things you don't believe in, or may be, when you do things that you think are pointless; you come to know that it isn't really as bad as you thought.

I did things that I would have never done on a "normal" day: watched a 2 hour spiritual talk, drank wine at home, downloaded deep purple discography only to listen and discover a few tracks that are classic but unexplored, saw photos in my album (from when I was born to where I am right now), went for a walk (seriously!, what a waste of time). On any other day, these things are pointless, but yesterday I enjoyed doing it. Peace!

So, a wise-ass crack would be "at times, when it doesn't hurt much, listen to yourself even when you know you are wrong".

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

When someone dies, we talk about what the dead guy did in his last few days

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:48:00 +0000

Looking back at the funerals I've attended, I have noticed that we try to listen-to/talk-about all that the dead guy did in his last few days. I am thinking why do we want to know that (unless it's a murder or the dead guy was too young to die). I asked this question to myself and I found that I am not interested in knowing what the dead guy did in his last few days, instead, I just want to know HOW did he die; is it due to some disease, due to accident or simply, old age?

But I think a lot of us want to know about what happened in the last few days because we want to find a pattern that people-who-are-going-to-die follow (just so that we know beforehand when our time is up). If you are looking for a pattern, then you are not really ready for death, that's why, some of us came up with the life-after-death concept (I am not ridiculing the concept, I am just not a believer of the concept. I think, we are born and we die, that's the end, there is no certainty of a beginning after death). It's certain that we are all going to die, and the certainty of death makes us curious about what's there on the other side.

Are you curious about what's there on the other side? me, not yet!

PS: I am emotional but I am taking logic in this post. I have a heart, death of a dear one is very stressful. But then, theoretically, death is simply fascinating because we don't know anything about it.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Coke float - marketing is the mother of this invention

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 06:33:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I've read the wiki entry and I still want to stick to what I think about Coke float.

Someone at work was saying good things about Coke-float, so, I made coke-float this afternoon and I did not like it at all. And because my coke and a single scoop of ice-cream got wasted, I had to think negative about the product (This is what humans do, they have the right to hate things and make up stories about it :)). By the way, we can't go wrong making this simple drink, coz after all it is a very simple mix and you have to be ultra stupid to go wrong.

Like I said, I hated this Coke-float drink...and that got me thinking, why do people love this and why has it become a popular drink? (after 2 minutes) Bazzinga!

I think, whenever Coke-float was invented, the sales of Coke or the vanilla ice cream were not up to the mark, or the supply of one of the two products was way above the demand. The marketing guys came up with this Coke-float drink to quickly sell their supplies. Howz that? don't you think that's possible? I think this is the real story, and if I were a marketer of a soft drink and my drinks were not selling much; I would not think about making better soda (unless my soda stinks), instead I would think about inventing a way for my customers to consume this soda, therefore, Coke-float.

Wow! another correlation. Steve Jobs designed the Apple stores to display products based on the solutions that users need and not simply the product-types that users want to buy. Makes sense.

PS: I know, thinking like this is atrocious.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Why does it take 12 years to gain X amount of knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:55:00 +0000

It took-my grandfather and my father- 12 years to complete their schooling. It took me 12 years to complete my schooling (I wanted 1 year more to complete it but I was forced to finish it in 12 years). It seems like it is going to take 12 years for my kids to complete their schooling (unless they have the same IQ as I J).

My grandfather definitely did not have all the amenities I had, relatively, I was exposed to quicker and easier ways of learning. And again, relatively, my kids will have iPads (or something better) to learn things much faster and better, why do they need 12 years of time to learn what I learned in 12 years.

Why is it that it takes 12 years to gain X amount of knowledge? Just think about it, what is this 12 years theory that we follow? Why can’t I finish my schooling in 10 years or may be in 8-9 years and get to higher education after that (Don’t think about double promotions, that helps me skip courses because I can handle more; I am not taking about this).

By the way, I am also considering that, if I am not able to gain all the knowledge (that I am supposed to gain) in 12 years, I should continue schooling for another 2-3 years…it’s just that I am taking a little more time to gain X amount of knowledge? (Don’t think about repeating a class, I am not talking about failing and repeating a course because it is not that I failed to learn things, it’s just that I want some more time to learn all that I am supposed to).

All in all, we need to change the way we time-box our education. This just baffles the fuck out of my brains. Why ? but why do we time-box our education like this? Not just schooling, to that matter, even higher education, why?

Show your desperation: you'll get to do it immediately

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:39:00 +0000

Are you desperate? Are you afraid that people will know you are desperate? Is it good to fake it and hide your desperation, just so that you look easy-going?

Apply some logic! showing desperation can actually get you immediate help. Some of us think that if we show our desperation to others, they will only pity us (of course, most of them do), but most of them immediately help too. OMG, how many times have we not shown our desperation to others because we don't want others to pity us or think we are weak/needy...that one time with that girl who could have helped me in all kinds of beautiful ways, that one time in college when I wasn't eligible for the career development workshop because I had 2% below the cut-off, that one time during the interview when they asked me why do I want this job :).

I think we should always show our desperation (I am personally going to, from now on) coz I am sure that we can get things done faster if we showed people how desperate we are about whatever is that we want done. And of course, don't show your desperation when you are negotiating something (that was a no-brainier, isn't it).

By the way, did you come to this post thinking it's going to be something to do with sex? if so, you are very normal :). And, the headline writer has done his job brilliantly (me, that is :-P).

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

Coming up with a blockbuster

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:33:00 +0000

I wasn't so worried about *age* before (I still am not coz I believe age is a freaking number and I am kinda young to worry about it), but now-a-days I see so many guys coming up with their blockbusters, and by change I happen to see the age of *that* singer/author/artist/sportsman/friend, and I am like "damn! he is a year younger than I am, and he already has this freaking bad-ass-talent". This got me thinking; when will I come up with my blockbuster? when?...and then I realized that I am not even working towards a blockbuster (How can I expect to come up with a blockbuster all of a sudden); so, it's not like I am not able to produce a blockbuster, it's simply that I have not even thought about it yet...not blaming anyone, not crediting anyone, just saying that most of us (sorry, I always include you :)) are not even working towards a blockbuster.

The next time you come across Adele soul singing, Nadal/Djokovic playing superb tennis, your awesome Harvard-MBA-friend kicking asses in his office as a CEO, Virat kholi giving advise to Sachin Tendulkar, and fans crying to be at a Justin Beiber concert, just understand that most of them (if not all) have worked towards their blockbuster by channeling all their energy and effort in one direction, I am sure even we'll get somewhere close to producing a blockbuster if we channel our efforts in one single direction.

Girish Mahadevan
www.gpod.in | Linkedin | Facebook | @girishmahadevan

In the end, I realized...

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:24:00 +0000

…that what I got is exactly what I wanted, but what I thought about what I want isn’t so right.

We all go through this at some point or the other, don’t we? It’s so true that we assume things, blindly go with the advise we get, simply follow what’s historically been done as correct, and then, when we get what we want and see what’s it all about, we get sad about it not being even close to our expectations. The fucking reality is in front of us, why don’t we just verify it ourselves. Let me give you some examples, verifying what it actually feels like being in Dubai will help you understand what Dubai actually isn’t…verifying what writers actually do might help you understand how many un-cool things are associated with writing …verifying exactly what that smart phone does will help you understand that you don’t need most of the features in that phone.

So, don’t be sad….it’s you who got you there, and it’s up to you to verify what it actually feels-like being there (before actually being there).

Trying to get all the information you can - FOMO

noreply@blogger.com (Girish Mahadevan) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:16:00 +0000

If you can’t follow all your subscribers (online), what do you do? You generally tend to go back to see all that you missed, and then you consider that as a backlog that needs to be cleared soon.

If you read a superb article online, you would want to just read it and enjoy it…although, you might have 500 other articles in your Google reader that might be as good as that article (this happens with me all the time). A lot of us feel that we’ve got to read all the other articles at any cost and we treat those articles as a backlog (that’s how much we like our subscribers), and we make sure that we put extra hours the next day to catch up with all that we missed.

What I think we should do is: see what we have time for (opportunity cost) and then decide on a few things to do for the time we have. If you think that you are going to miss out on good things if you don’t check every update, then you won’t be able to enjoy the one article that you are reading…but if you just consider that this one article is the best you can get out of all the other articles, you will enjoy that article and get the most out of it. The point is that we should just read that ONE article and say NO to the rest of the articles.

We all are affected by FOMO (Fear of Missing opportunities). We fear that not-being-able-to-do-something might lead to a loss of opportunity. Just get over it, don’t think much, just decide on what’s best and do it (may be you are wrong about “what’s best”, but that’s how things really are, don’t fight it, just deal with it).