The last couple of days I have been attending a two day Architecture summit hosted by ICMG and KPIT Cummins together. The event was held at the KPIT Cummins premises in Hinjewadi, Pune.
The agenda consisted of keynotes presentations and panel discussions by CIOs and CTOs of some of the key IT companies. The key notes were great and the panel discussions were very interesting aided by some very difficult questions by the participants and conductors. The event offered an insight into the minds of CTOs and CIOs, their thoughts on how the industry is progressing and where it should go.
Overall I returned with a refreshing feeling of time well spent, knowledge gained and most importantly where I stand in the current industry. So the next step for me would be to chalk out a plan to gain the skills and expertise in areas which I’m lacking. I would definitely try to attend this event in the next year.

Today is the anniversary of 26/11. The incidents on this night in Mumbai last year have left an everlasting impression on the minds of many Indians. The mindless murder, mayhem caused by a handful of terrorists has changed many a lives.

And politicians being what they are try to gain political mileage out of this incident too. MNS deliberately does not put non-Marathi heroes in its hoardings to mark the first anniversary of 26/11 : MNS hoarding forgets non-Marathi heroes.

This is a new low for any politician in India. A person who has done a SUPREME SACRIFICE by laying down his life fighting for his country has to be HONOURED. I would have paid respect even to my worst enemy, if he would have done such a sacrifice by keeping aside my personal animosity; and I’m sure everyone of you would do the same.

But not MNS. It has done what no other political party or politician has done in India till now, it has not included the names of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Havaldar Gajendra Singh Bisht who lost their lives battling terrorists at the Taj Mahal hotel and Nariman House respectively.

No MNS I don’t approve of such acts and I’m sure no Indian will either. You will never get my vote or my respect!

Jai Hind!

A day in the sun by ncanup

There are three things you should look for in a job.

1. Money – The money should be good, if not better. You should ideally get a little more than the market standard, if not, then even the market standard would do. There is no point in working for less, loyalty to the company be damned. If the company can’t recognize your talent and pay accordingly then chances are it will never recognize them.

2. Good work – You should have job satisfaction.period. In todays environment its difficult for organisations to always provide you with challenging work. Also, you’ll burnout if you are constantly working on challenging assignments. But there should be a healthy mix and match. Work should consist of normal mundane work with intermittent challenging work that helps you grow professionally.

3. Supportive, Open environment – Yes, you should have a good boss(es) who encourages you to grow, gives you adequate feedback when you are in error and stands by you in your difficult times. The same can be said for colleagues.

If any two of the above things are lacking in your current job then its time to quit and look elsewhere. But before you do that just reflect whether you have the attitude, skills and the drive to be a good employee in your current job. And lastly don’t burn any bridges before leaving; the world is a small place.

In programming hard coding is considered a bad practice. Yet it has its advantages – hard coding improves performance at the expense of extensibility of the program. A person can also benefit by hard-coding a few values or habits. I would say these values need to be hard-coded in to your personality at a very young age – maybe you can teach some of this to your sons, daughters or nephews. Few of the values to hard-code/hardwire are

1. Never give up. Never ever give up. You need this attitude to become successful.

2. Put in the hours. Now a days everyone wants everything the easy way. Work smart not hard is the mantra. Working smart only means making the best use of resources available for you. Working smart doesn’t automagically get the work done for you – working hard will. Hard-code this “There is no substitute for hard work”. Get in, put in the hours and success comes to you.

3. Move on. Success and failures are part of life. You need both and can’t do without either too. But the most important thing to remember is to move on – in either case.

4. Build bridges. Never hold a grudge against anyone. Life is too short and you never know when you’ll cross paths with the other. Don’t let your ego come in between. Make-up or forgive but always build bridges.

5. Have confidence. This comes at the top. There are some who say confidence comes with knowledge, thats o.k, but what if you don’t have it? The thing to do is always have confidence and if you don’t have the knowledge then start acquiring it.

6. Failing and succeeding. Don’t let failure deject you. Don’t be a wimp and build walls around you. No man (or woman, for that matter) ever achieved success without failing in the beginning. Accept that there cannot be success without failure.

7. Just do it! Anything that goes up has to come down. Like wise your enthusiasm will go up and down. There would be days when you feel like not working at all. But I say go ahead and just start doing what you are supposed to do. There is power in starting and within no time you’ll lose your blues and immerse yourself in work. Like Nike says Just do it!

So, my friends, start hard-coding these qualities for your success.
Do you differ or do you think I missed a few that you would like to add ? Let me know in your comments..

Read any productivity book or blog and the common theme that emerges is the importance of having a routine. Why is that so many people recommend routine. Well, the essence of productivity to to get all routine tasks, that don’t add any value, finished as soon as possible so you have more time for important tasks. There is never more time, you need to make time for your goals. Routines help you in achieving your goals.

Routines should be created for all the repetitive mundane tasks that need to be done. For e.g your goal can be spending more time with family, then your routine should aim at completing your office work or home work as soon as possible so that you have more time for spending with your family. This requires a little bit of planning and organizing. Planning for allocating time for each tasks, organizing everything you need to complete that task before hand so that when you start that task you don’t have any distractions.

As with any new change that you do in your life, you are bound to fail when you start forming a routine. But hey, thats ok! The key here is to keep doing it until the routine becomes natural to you. But that doesn’t mean that you keep on following the routine. Its more important to keep reviewing your routine once a month to see if the routine is helping you, whether you need to further tweak it for more efficiency or to discard it entirely and come up with a new routine.

The only constant thing in this world is change. The routine that has been working for you since the last year or so may not be working for you now and you may feel the need to change it. That’s ok and perfectly fine to do so. The key here is to form, observe and improve your routine.

What are your routines? Did you ever experiment with them and did you find them beneficial?
Do write to me with your experiences with routines, I’d appreciate it!