Nikolai Chowdhury

Battle of the Banks: How FinTech is Disrupting the Financial Industry

2016-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Battle of the Banks: How FinTech is Disrupting the Financial Industry

Over the last few years, I’ve been heavily involved working with clients in the financial sector, and have learned a lot about the in’s-and-out’s of the industry. Now, every single day, FinTech startups – companies that are innovating the financial industry through technology – are popping up everywhere and disrupting the banking scene. Some call it the “unbundling of banking,”” while others call it “product-by-product battles”.

Regardless, “90% of bankers project that Fintech will have a significant impact on the future landscape of banking.” If the bankers think it, then we’re bound to see major changes in the financial industry this year. Here’s what some of that might look like:

Partnerships

Financial institutions are having a difficult time luring in new talent who can help banks innovate their technology systems. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s research on FinTechs found that banks admit to their own culture to be “unsuited to rapid change and an inability to attract top technological talent.” Because banks tend to be more risk-averse, “they do not attract the right talent.”

To solve the situation, top financial institutions such as JP Morgan are actively partnering with up-and-coming FinTech companies. These partnerships will pave the way for the next generation of FinTech innovation, becoming a win-win for both sides: Startups get incubators – such as the Citi Mobile Challenge and FinLabs – and established institutions reap the benefits of supporting innovations, especially when it comes to improving their payments and lending services.

Mobile Banks + Mobile Wallets = 0 Lines

I’m a fan of convenience. I’ve been using Starbuck’s mobile ordering offering since its debut. I sit at my office, order a drink, walk downstairs, and pick it up. No waiting in line or fiddling with my wallet.

This experience will become commonplace, and a solid companion to delivery services like Postmates and Caviar. What makes all this work are the innovations in payment services. In a recent study at EY, “the way we pay for goods and services, transfer money between accounts and send it overseas” are the most common and quickly adopted uses of FinTech services.

At the rate business is done these days, merchants no longer afford to have customers stand in line at the cash register (and we don’t have the time either). If businesses plan to stay afloat, they will have to recognize the benefits of mobile payment services – more correct orders, lower need for POS staffing, and higher order values with heightened awareness of product offerings. And as businesses increasingly follow this trend, we’ll less likely find ourselves waiting in line for the ATM in 2016.

The Blockchain

Perhaps the most powerful but least commonly discussed disruption in the financial industry is the blockchain. Wall Street is full of middlemen who get paid to reduce and manage risk between settlement windows when trading. But with Nasdaq’s recent partnership with Chain.com to pilot Bitcoin technology, the blockchain will not only reduce the settlement windows from a matter of days to mere minutes, it will also reduce the risk, the middlemen who come along with it, and improve transparency in the process. It’ll be interesting to see how this will transform Wall Street and its relationships with rising FinTech companies.

Large financial institutions can no longer afford to ignore the rise of FinTech. Banks are collaborating and Wall Street is getting slow. Let’s pay for food from our couches and watch the show.

Stop Struggling With Email: Sharpening Your Inbox Skills

2016-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Stop Struggling With Email: Sharpening Your Inbox Skills

I’ve been using email since forever. One of my first phones was a BlackBerry—back when they were actually blue (thanks, Dad!).

Since my inbox has always been in the palm of my hand, I’m well aware of its benefits and pitfalls. I’m comfortable saying that email is a wonderful communication tool. But we could be a lot more efficient when we use it.

Here’s how to avoid getting lost in your inbox.

The Evolution of Email

While email traces its roots to the 1960s, it wasn’t until the 1990s that services like AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve made inroads in the consumer market. Shortly after, email gradually crept into the enterprise, finally gaining widespread use in the 2000s.

While texting, instant messaging, and video conferencing have displaced email in certain situations, we still regularly light up the inboxes of our colleagues and loved ones.

Why We Still Use Email in Business

Email is a workplace standard. No matter which domain you’re using to host your email, you can send messages to anyone.

Since email communication occurs asynchronously, senders have time to think through their word choice. Email encourages deeper, more substantive conversations than other mediums.

Email also gives users an audit trail. It can prove who sent a message and when it was sent. This capability makes it easier to manage client accounts and document interactions.

How I Use Email

I don’t open my email first thing in the morning. I’m confident that if there’s something important to address, it will trickle up through other filters. The people I work with know that if there’s an urgent issue, then I expect a text, phone call, or Slack message. Slack, by the way, is our de facto communication mode and how we collaborate as a team (no matter where our team is).

A majority of American workers obsess over their inboxes. But with a little creativity, you’ll realize that you don’t need to be in your inbox as much as you thought.

Better Email Behaviors

Even if you have excellent email skills, it can get better.

First, keep your emailing to a minimum for a few reasons:

It’s difficult to convey the appropriate tone in email.
Emails can unnecessarily prolong debates.
You’re more likely to get a reactive response to an email.

When you do send emails, keep them short and sweet. According to Guy Kawasaki, emails should be precisely five sentences long—no more, no less. Shorter emails seem curt, and longer emails won’t be read.

Before clicking send, ask whether your message might be more useful in other channels like Slack, WhatsApp, or iMessage. If you need an immediate response, steer clear of the inbox.

Helpful Tools

If you have to deal with email, here are a few interesting email management tools that I’m using:

Sortd, a tool that turns your email into lists.
Yesware, which helps with campaigns and follow-ups.
MailChimp, a tool for streamlining email blasts.

You’ll also want test whether your provider’s webmail or native client provides a better experience. Then ask yourself whether you’re more productive in your inbox on a laptop, mobile phone, or iPad Pro.

Email In the Future

Email will remain relevant in business for a long time still, meaning that you need to continue sharpening your skills.

To make sure you stay productive, don’t forget that it’s usually easier to just call someone instead of writing an email. It’s quicker and less time consuming than email conversations.

And if you want an instant response but you’re afraid to pick up the phone, ping your colleague on Slack (my platform of choice)—don’t send an email. You’ll sleep better at night.

10 Steps to Follow When Making a Tough Decision

2016-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Photo by flickr user marfis75

10 Steps to Follow When Making a Tough Decision

Running a company, team, or product initiative is hard work. It requires a delicate balance of people, deliverables, and impact—all of which are essential to any decision-making process. Of course, some decisions are harder to make than others.

How can you be sure that you’re making the right decision?

My Decision-Making Framework

I’ve worked in a few different industries during my career. I’ve been on product teams and engineering teams. I’ve also been on strategy teams for large companies and volunteer organizations. Over that time, I’ve developed a decision-making framework.

When you find yourself having to make a hard decision, you can’t allow your emotions to guide your decision. Keep in mind that emotions from one event can influence your response to another, unrelated event.

You also can’t let numbers alone dictate your approach to a solution. Sure, making or saving money is a priority. It shouldn’t be the only factor in your decision.

Beyond that, you shouldn’t make your decision solely because it will impress others. Your decision can be the right one for the company but your people might not like it. What if you have to lay off companies to stay financially solvent? Alternatively, you could make the wrong decision and people might love it. No employee will ever complain about an expense account with no oversight.

A New Approach to Decision-Making

While no two problems are exactly the same, you’ll have an easier time making difficult decisions if you follow these ten steps.

Frame the Problem

Look at the problem from as many different angles as possible. Ask yourself whether your solution is the only option. Try to figure out some alternatives and decide whether you can delay the decision.

Be Empathetic

Think about how your decision will affect others. Imagine that you were removed from the equation, and then consider the problem. Would your decision change?

Know Yourself

Try to determine whether you’ve seen this scenario before. You know what you’re capable of. If you think it will pay off, take a risk.

Seek Advice

You’re not the smartest person alive. Most business decisions have come up before, so ask your peers and mentors what they think about your situation. Make sure to consider all options, not just those you’ve come up with yourself.

Timebox the Process

Set a deadline for your decision and stick with it. Timebox it. The longer you dwell on a decision, the more complicated it will become.

Be Transparent

Make your thought process known to all relevant stakeholders. Any errors in your logic will be identified.

Build Consensus

The more people who agree with your decision, the easier it’ll be to implement change. Get others on board with your choice.

Plan a Path Forward

You need to assess potential fallout or backlash. Will your decision create even more complications? Plan a path forward for after your decision and follow it through.

Don’t Hesitate

When you’ve determined the way forward, go with it. You’ve done your research. Don’t delay.

Keep Learning

Use each decision-making process as a learning experience. Don’t make the same decisions over and over (unless it’s correct). Once you train yourself to recognize scenarios, tough decisions become easier to make.

When you’re trying to make an impact, you’ll meet obstacles requiring hard decisions.

The good news is that by remaining level-headed and wielding a decision-making framework, you’re much more likely to make the right decisions—and a lot quicker, too.

Virtually Amazing - 5 Tasks You Can Automate Today.

2015-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Image via Death to Stock Photo

You’re an entrepreneur because you’re a doer–someone who gets the ball rolling.

Whether you’re running a team or launching a business (or both!), you’re juggling many things. You may think you can handle it, but let me assure you–you’ll drop something–if not in your business, then in your personal life.

And if I asked you, “Why are you working so hard?” You’d tell me, “Because if I didn’t, who would?”

What if I told you that you could get back your time and check off your to-do’s without lifting a finger?

Outsourcing can save you hours, and in the process help you grow your business. When biology blogger and entrepreneur Leslie Samuel first launched his online venture, even using the bathroom or eating a meal was an inconvenience. Then, he hit a breaking point. He walked away. The virtual processes he created generated revenue for him when he stepped out.

You can make those strides towards productivity now before you break.

Here are five common things you can cross off your list through outsourcing (and how to do it).

##Yes, You Can Automate That#

Event panelist and attendee research - Use Amazon Mechanical Turk to find background information about the key people that you’ll meet at an upcoming conference (without breaking the bank).
Information on industry trends - I’m experimenting with ‘Turkers’ to see if they can discover industry trends. They’re great for crunching data, so I expect this will return great results. I just need to be specific.
Manage ad campaigns - A good friend, Jeremy Kagan, runs an agency called Pricing Engine. If you’ve got a social campaign but need someone else to manage it; they’re fantastic. They can cover the whole thing or just set up and manage AdWords a la carte.
Find the best places to book travel reservations - Pana seamlessly books travel plans, including hotels, airlines, and restaurants. It remembers my preferences when I return to those cities. I recently met the founder, Devon Tivona, at a Google for Entrepreneurs event in SF. You can bet I’ll turn back to him and Pana the next time I visit the Bay Area.
Order a last-minute gift - Did you forget a gift this holiday season? Too late. But next time, you’ve got FancyHands. If you can think of it, FH makes it happen–including finding back issues of magazines or booking and scheduling appointments. They’ll do everything short of inputting your credit card information. (Actually, they’ll do that too! And seamlessly bill you for the transaction).

##How To Automate It#

These are the easiest ways to stop sweating daily tasks.

###Discover Where Your Time Goes#

Understand where you spend your time. Set an alarm every 2 hours for a week and keep a journal to see what’s consuming your day.

Focus on building your business, not running it. Ask yourself, does this task require interpretation, strategy, or building relationships with key people? No? Take care of it remotely.

###Know What You Want#

Know what you want, and then have someone else find it. Magnesis Concierge is fantastic at restaurant research and booking, but don’t just say “find me a restaurant. Instead, say, “I like Lupa, find me something similar that has good vegetarian options.” The more specific you are, the better.

###Cross Examine Results#

With mTurk, throw the same data into a few streams. Cross-reference the results. Always look at the results before passing it on. Ultimately, you’re responsible it. If something looks off, it probably is. And if you’ve blindly forwarded bad material, it’s your fault.

Now that you’re on your way to being a virtual boss, tell me how it goes. Share in the comments how you’re automating the monotonous parts of your day.

iPad Pro — Is Bigger Better? And 5 Ways I’m Using It.

2015-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Image via CNET

You can hear the murmurings: Steve Jobs would never have let this happen. A massive iPad with a stylus? No way, not a chance. It looks like a Microsoft Surface. Maybe it’s just a me-too play.

It’s true that at face value, the iPad Pro might look and seem a lot like the Microsoft’s Surface. But the large iPad is not a copycat.

Look at what Jobs told Wired in 1996:

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design is how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.”

##With the right tools, the iPad Pro is useful

I’ve lived with the iPad Pro for over a week. I was initially skeptical about where it would fit in my life – literally and figuratively. Because of the device’s 12.9-inch screen, I thought it was something I would use just around the office or at home. Why would I haul it everywhere?

Disclaimer: That was before I had my hands on any of the device’s accessories.

As luck would have it, I made a last-minute trip to Atlantic City for a conference. I swung by the Caesar’s Apple Store and lo and behold; I scored a keyboard case. All of a sudden, inputting text longer than a password was effortless.

Though the keyboard was a welcomed addition to my setup, the device was lacking something: the hard-to-find Apple Pencil (a.k.a., the stylus). I checked Apple Stores in New York City on a daily basis. Finally, I stumbled across one in Grand Central at 7 a.m. one morning.

It changed everything. The device was no longer just a big iPad. Together, the keyboard and stylus transformed how I thought about inputting information into applications.

##One week in, here’s how I’m using the iPad Pro#

After adding the stylus and keyboard, the device packed a greater punch. Here are five ways I use the iPad Pro:

###1. Overall productivity.#

It’s great for managing day-to-day tasks and clearing out my inbox. Outlook for iOS is a killer app. I use it religiously, and you can even attach files from Dropbox or Box, no more links! The device is also particularly useful to catch up on social media using Twitterific and Buffer. The screen size makes it simple to see your Twitter impact.

###2. Note taking. #

I love the new Apple Notes app, but the Apple Pencil excels in Evernote. I’m confident that I can leave paper notebooks behind and diagram what I need to during a meeting or brainstorming session. If only I had this setup during economics classes at business school—supply and demand charts would have been much easier to handle.

###3. Design thinking, prototyping, sketching, etc.#

The sensitivity, lack of delay, and balanced feel of the Apple Pencil make it a breeze to be productive (and creative…) with apps like OmniGraffle and Adobe Comp CC. They nailed it.

###4. Music notation.#

The iPad Pro works great with Capo, an app my dad found that scans songs in your library and pulls out the chord progressions. For catching up with Piano practice…it’s also easy to use Dropbox to download PDFs of musical scores.

###5. Gaming and entertainment.#

Gaming and entertainment aren’t the first things that come to mind when you think about a product billed as a “business productivity device.” But the iPad Pro is a fantastic device to play games on, from Asphalt to Candy Crush and everything in between. HBO Go and Netflix look great on the massive screen, too.

The bottom line? If you’re a fan of what Apple does, give the iPad Pro a go (or at the very least, put it on your holiday wish list).

Take my word for it: You won’t be disappointed.

How To Create Buzz For Enterprise Products

2015-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Your team has been knee-deep in customer discovery and development for months. You’ve demo-ed and piloted your product. Now, it’s time to get the growth engine started.

But how?

Nurturing buzz, demand, growth, whatever you call it – it’s hard. You can throw lots of money at it, but that’s a massive risk.

Instead, I’d suggest looking at your existing assets, such as leadership, the ability to build connections, and deep knowledge.

Combine those three together to find your customers and drive home their desire to buy from you, right now.

Here’s how.

##Where to Find Sales Help##

Hint: it’s not by hiring someone to run sales.

Hiring your first salesperson is one of the trickiest problems that every startup eventually tackles. Hire too quickly and you’re funneling money into a risky asset. Hire too late? Your competitors will quickly pass you.

You’ve started and grown this company. The stakes are high. So who can you trust?

Yourself.

You, the founder, are the first and best salesperson for your company.

You know your product inside and out. You know what works and what doesn’t. Where the product is and where it’s going. You know the features, competitive advantages, customer pain points, and the product’s benefits. Use it.

You’ve also built a small team of investors, advisors, partners, employees, and users. They know the product intimately and have bought in. Leverage them while you’re hitting product-market fit.

But you will eventually want to hire someone. But only when you think the sales process can scale. Specifically, when you think you can generate marketing leads, you have a clear path to closing customers, and your salesperson covers their salary in revenue.

The conclusion here is a simple: if and only if you have more sales than you can handle should you begin to think about hiring that first salesperson.

##When Growth Hacking Makes Most Sense##

Good relationships won’t make a bad product good, but you can engineer attention for your product.

Here are a few ways to draw eyeballs.

You can use relationship-building tools - from Contactually to Close.io, from Insightly to Salesforce.

You can collect emails and send people interesting and relevant stuff. SumoMe, a free WordPress plugin, might be the easiest way to grab emails. Noah and the guys at AppSumo help you to turn site visitors into email subscribers. You might convert those people into buyers, Twitter followers, or just an interested readership.

You can try link building. Neil Patel at Quicksprout, noting that sites such as UpWorthy, Yelp, and Airbnb, were boosted by sizeable media exposure on the back of mentions at the NY Times, put together this handy guide to link building.

You can try LinkedIn. Yes. LinkedIn.

Leveraging LinkedIn to sell your product is inexpensive and simple. Business titans and LinkedIn Influencers like Arianna Huffington and Richard Branson push their thoughts, ideas and industry views on their LinkedIn profiles, garnering millions of views.

While you might not have Ariana or Sir Richard’s audience size, you can still build an active and engaged following.

##Appeal to Pain Points & Drive Home the Benefits##

According to SalesBrain and the Triune Brain theory, the reptilian region is the brain’s attention gatekeeper and decision maker. In Thinking Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes two systems in the Brain: System 1 (Reptilian + Middle brain) and System 2 (NeoCortex). Kahneman methodically and scientifically establishes that when it comes to purchasing, System 1 rules.

If you can pique the curiosity of a buyer’s reptilian brain with your homepage, newsletter, or ad, you’ve got a fair chance of holding their attention and maybe converting them.

But don’t SCREAM IN ALL CAPS for their attention. Appeal to their pain. What’s irritating them right now? What have they been unable to solve? What are they missing in your life? Could they solve the problem on their own, or is it too distracting to their core business?

Your product is the answer. Your product benefits will greatly improve their lives. You’ll make them feel better. You need to strike an emotional chord.

Let them associate the good feelings with you and your brand.

Good luck growing your company. Let me know how I can help.

Crafting A Developer Toolkit For Remote Teams

2015-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Crafting a developer toolkit is essential for managing globally distributed teams.

With the right toolkit, you can effectively manage a remote group from anywhere, and at whatever time is convenient for you. The new way of working knows no geographical boundaries, either within your company or with its partners around the world.

The key to success in this global environment is managing your organization’s communications and workflow.

In the past, people did business with each other locally, where the managers and employees of each team could meet with each other face-to-face easily whenever they needed. Sometimes, they might do business with other non-local companies over telephone and mail. But for the most part, the only firms with an international focus were those involved in import and export.

Things changed as the world got smaller. Inventions like the fax machine, long distance calling, better international transportation, and the internet made it possible for businesses anywhere to work with each other with ease and to tap into a global customer base without jumping on a plane.

Now, remote working is changing the way teams do business and how software is built.

With cloud-based technology platforms, organizations are no longer restricted to one physical office space. Employees and management can literally take their work on the road with them wherever they want to go. This feeds into an overall trend of globalization that we’re still in the midst of.

But global organizations have very different needs. Some large enterprises created their own custom solutions, while others outsourced it. But today, there are turnkey solutions that you can and should implement to keep your remote teams in check.

Here are some tools for your developer toolkit to help you sustain a modern organization:

Slack + Integrations -- Slack is a communications tool that every business should be using. It’s great on desktop and mobile. Now, your teams can keep the same channels of communication open and centralized wherever they are regardless of what device they have with them. Plus, Slack integrates with almost any tool you need, including everything I’ve listed below.
Github -- Github is the code repository. It has Slack integrations, so you can see who’s changing the code base when and why. Plus it’s got amazing version control. It’s a must in any organization.
Trello -- Trello is one of a few collaborative organization tools. There are others, like Asana, that people love. But Trello is my favorite. Within it, you use lists and cards to organize tasks. It’s a great way for your team to visualize what everyone’s working on and what’s up next. Plus, no surprise, it integrates with Slack. That allows you to keep even more of your group’s activity centralized.
Video Chatting and Screen Sharing with Hangouts and ScreenHero -- Google Hangouts lets you video chat on-demand and ScreenHero lets you share your computer screen with others. Once again, they have great Slack integrations so you can do all this without leaving your communication hub. Suddenly, your overseas development counterparts can engage with you on a personal level you likely couldn’t achieve so easily before.

One other thing you should include in your toolkit is something that encourages transparency and collaboration: daily management standups.

My preferred standup software solution is IDoneThis.

IDoneThis enforces accountability and makes sure tasks are getting done. Through the app, employees receive an evening email reminder every night asking them to report on what they worked during that day (projects, ongoing development, whatever). The next day, management gets email with a list of what everyone on the team accomplished yesterday. It is an excellent team management tool, especially for distributed teams.

Let be clear: there’s nothing quite like sitting down with your colleagues and a white board to solve whatever urgent issues are plaguing you today.

But by using the right tools, you can achieve much of that same collaborative power and turn your remote organization into a powerhouse.

One of the next hugely successful breakout companies is going to built around remote organizations.

That’s because they’ll have identified the right tools, right communication paradigms, and the right processes to leverage talent globally in a way we’ve never truly seen before. The trend will only explode from there.

But for now, take a cue from me and start implementing these solutions today.

What I’m Telling My Friends After 3 Months With The Apple Watch

2015-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been about 3 months since Apple launched their first new device without Steve Jobs at the helm: the Apple Watch. Pre-orders went live on April 10th at 3am New York time and I didn’t want to miss the chance to get one of the first shipments. But there was a problem: I was already headed to London at that time. While I love Richard Branson, I wouldn’t jeopardize my odds at getting the watch by relying on transatlantic wifi. Luckily, I have a very understanding girlfriend. While flying to London Business School to take a class and complete my Columbia EMBA, she woke up in the middle of the night to secure me an Apple Watch in the first round of preorders. I’m a lucky guy.

Now that I’ve had the Apple Watch strapped to my wrist for 90+ days, I thought it was about time to answer the most common questions that come up when I talk with friends and colleagues who aren’t quite sure what to make of this new wearable.

Is it an iPhone replacement?

Let’s not mince words - current smart watch screens are really small. From what I’ve experienced so far, apps (or app functions) that are driven primarily by gestures and swipes are where the Apple Watch really shines. For apps with a heavier navigational element (e.g. phone calls), I tend to just cut to the chase and pull out my phone to get the job done faster.

Aside from the difference in form factor that make certain apps impractical for direct porting to the Apple Watch, it also requires an iPhone 5 or later to perform its most important functions – that is, until the native SDK that’s part of watchOS 2 becomes available. For example, 3rd party fitness apps that rely on the Apple Watch’s sensors for data collection have to push that sensor data directly into a paired iPhone for the data to be usable. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently conceded to Fast Company that the need for that pairing “creates a ceiling” for the device that will certainly limit sales. You can bet Apple is doing everything in their power to address that issue in the upcoming rollout of the native Apple Watch SDK.

How is the payment experience?

Mobile-payment systems have been slow to catch on so far. However, with the likes of commercial giants such as Starbucks allowing for wrist-ordered lattes or Chipotle paving the way for buying burritos via your watch face, Apple Pay looks like it will be hard to beat. I’m already convinced. The payment experience is great via the iWatch and I haven’t seen any glitches or awkward moments. Over time I can see this mode of payment feeling even more natural than pulling out one’s credit card ever did.

Is the notification experience really that much better?

Where the Apple Watch really shines is with contextually relevant notifications. For example, it’s great to know when I have important emails or texts coming in without having to pull out my phone constantly. It’s much more natural to take a peek at my watch now and again.

And I’m not alone in this sentiment. In an online survey conducted by Battery Ventures, 109 early adopters of the Apple Watch were asked to discuss their usage of the device. 2 of the 3 top use cases - in terms of time spent on device - were checking email (72%) and text messaging (62%).

Should I use this to replace my wearable health & fitness devices?

From the same Battery Ventures study, the number one feature for Apple Watch users in terms of time spent was fitness tracking (72%). For me, tracking my health & fitness data and activities with my Apple Watch is “the” killer app. For wearable category leaders like FitBit and Jawbone, the advent of the Apple Watch and similar devices may be just a plain old killer. Some pundits agree, and are predicting that Apple Watch and other smart watches will cut into the single purpose fitness/activity tracker market, reducing its current size by up to 75% by the year 2020.

Bottom Line?

Evolution, not revolution.

The Apple Watch is a great device, but it won’t ever replace (at least for me) a well made “dumb” watch. Still, it’s hands down the best product in the smart watch category that’s been released to date. I can’t wait to see how the ecosystem and apps around the Apple Watch continue to develop.

The Columbia EMBA Experience: the Leader's Voice

2015-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Columbia EMBA Experience

As I’m wrapping up the last few weeks of the Executive MBA Program at Columbia Business School, I’ve been thinking alot about my experience, the great classes, professors, lifelong connections and friends that have been made during the journey. During the past 2 years, my classmates and I have had a crashcourse in time management, prioritization, and the jump back into academics – and naturally one of the first things to go was the focus on my personal blog.

This piece will be the first in a series of retrospective thoughts on the b-school experience, takeaways and lessons learned. I hope it provides some context of what I’ve ben up to for the last two years, but also proves as a resource for prospective students who come across it.

The Leader’s Voice: Communicating To Lead Organizations

One of the classes I have had the pleasure to take during my Columbia experience was with Professors Angela Lee & Brad Aspel entitled The Leader’s Voice - B7538-001. It focuses on the tactics, techniques, and best practices for becoming a better communicator in both spoken and written mediums.

Over the 12 week course we touched on many different topics. We had the chance to do everything from practicing synthesizing long articles into quick soundbites to building a repitoire of stories that we can tell in any situation be it professional or casual. Presentations were to the entire class as well in small coaching groups, receiving and giving solid unadulturated feedback. There are not many circumstances in which you have the chance to practice these kind of skills! I have found that in general, some of the most beneficial material and experiences throughought school have centered around perfecting and practicing a multitute of “soft-skills”. Sure there was a fair share of hardcore financial modeling and valuation material that is also invaluable, but there is something about knowing how to command a room and captivate an audience.

As part of the final project and setup for putting the learnings into action we each gave a presentation and were asked to critique and receive feedback from a coach in attendence. I’ll talk briefly about the experience, but mainly focus on the skills leveraged and how my presentation style changed over time before and after the class.

Before

As a mobile engineer and solution architect, a large portion of my day-to-day centers around talking to customers, developers, and the tech community on a multitue of varied topics. On one day day I do deep dives on platform architecture and systems integration, on another day I might be talking about industry trends, and then shift to talking about a particular project or presenting conceptual product vision. That being said, I have always been told that my style was solid and never really thought I needed to work on too much. After going through some exercises in class and in the small group settings, I found there was so much that could be done to refine my style and improve the clarity and impact of my presentations. There were 3 key areas which I chose to actively monitor and focus on when applying the in class learning to my day-to-day and for my talk:

Preparation: I have always been one to prep slides and then jump right into a talk, but this sometimes can backfire on having a preconceived flow & approach and sense of timing or familiarity with the talking points without actually rehearsing.
Adapting to the Audience with Clarity of Intent: Rather than focusing only on content (content IS key) and the goals of the talk, need to instead focus on what the receiving end is getting out of it.
Visual & Non-Verbal Queues: Alot of my presentations have been webinars or remote, so there are alot of visual cues and mannerisms that are not necessarily apparent.

My Talk

That talk I gave, happened to be something that was very close and personal to me, my CBS Matters presentation to my fellow EMBA peers. To give some context, CBS Matters is a farily casual, yet organized forum for members of the busines school community to share what they’re passionate about and where they want their careers to go – 15 minutes of fame in front of your peers so to speak. I’ve heard some fantastics stories from many in my class and wanted to have the opportunity to present my own story before leaving. For my presentation I focused less on myself and background but more on two areas that are very important to me, music and family and the intersection of both. My grandfather, Salil Chowdhury (whom I reference quite a bit) was a film composer in Bollywood and I talked through some of the experiences that I had learning from him, and also extending his legacy into the future for subsquent generations to appreciate. At some point I’ll put up the slides but for now; here’s the long form of a video that I showed developed by the Salil Chowdhury Foundation of music.

The key part of my preparation centered around understanding my audience and putting forth areas of my life and background that people maybe did not know too well about me. Since I’ve had 2 years getting to know my classmates I have had many opportunities at happy hours, social events, and internationl trips to share some great stories, but I wanted to switch things up and talk a bit about something that nobody had ever heard before (for the most part). The experience was great to share, and learned quite a bit of tatics from the class that were put to use.

Key Takeaways

Overall the Leader’s Voice was a extremely valuable class. I for one would love to see if there is a way to create a digital training experience that helps tackle the topics and practice in a different setting (MOOC maybe?).

As a takeaway, I’d like to propose a 3 bucket approach for anyone to benefit from the material covered in the class. Anyone who would like to become a better communicator should focus on the following three areas as a curriculum:

Preparing to Captivate an Audience:

Storytelling
Synthesis
Influencing
Non-Verbals Cues

Tactics and Putting Into Practice

Public Speaking
Managing Teams
Managing Time & Projects
Communicating Through Other Channels

Creating your own Personal Brand

Innovation & Creativity
Business Improv
Building Relationships

Welcome to nikolai.in, a long time in the making.

2013-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve had numerous failed attempts over the years to build out a personal blog of my thoughts and commentary surrounding tech, business, and life in general but after evaluating most of your standard Wordpress, Drupal, out of box CMS approaches it always seemed to be overkill for a no-thrills personal blog. I discovered Jekyll…and it gets the job done simply, elegantly, and with a cool hacker mentality to top it off.

What’s under the hood

I’ve been a fan of building out and hosting my own boxes on AWS (had my share of Network Solutions horror), but for this experiment, nikolai.in is hosted on GitHub. Everything is version controlled, and its super simple to edit on the fly with Prose.io. It’s running Jekyll and all of the posts are written in Markdown.

About Me

I’m a mobile developer and solution architect from New York, NY. I’ve been “working” for more than eleven years in technology, but have been tinkering much longer than that.

I’ve developed and implemented numerous innovative and groundbreaking interactive experiences at Genwi, cloud publshing for mobile, Women’s Wear Daily, a division of Condé Nast Publications, and Colin Cowie Enterprises, a lifestyle digital media company–in addition to working with the likes of Time Warner Center, Times Music India and Fordham University through my own technical consulting and strategy agency.

Apart from skiing in the winters in Saint-Sauveur-des-monts, QC, I enjoy being a concert classical pianist and collaborating with my family’s music production company in India. I also serve on my NJ town’s local environmental commission.

My core has been javascript, html, css, php, and visual design, but since I’ve expanded and gone the mobile route, playing with Objective-C and building cross platform experiences with Phonegap and other frameworks.

I love discovering new trends, diving deep into trying the next best thing, and building refined timeless experiences that don’t make the user think.

So what’s this blog going to be about?

Everything and anything. Stay tuned.