The world is flat!!

I am pretty sure many of you may have heard of this book written by Thomas L Friedman. It is book that talks about globalization to great depths, talking about the way business is done by big companies like ebay,walmart,Dell,HP,UPS,Google,Microsoft. It also studies the way many Indian based IT companies like Infosys,Wipro,Mindtree and even small firms like Jadoo works thrive in the flat world. No wonder the book is 570 pages fat excluding the appendix. The size of the book and given the fact that it is a business book may make one think it would be a dull read. But let me tell you with utmost urge that it is not. Friedman has managed to collect facts and present it in the most interesting and gripping manner.

So after couching myself on the sofa for many nights (I am a very slow reader) would I agree whether the world is really flat!! YES it is and I am sure many of my friends would second me without even having to read the book.

Let me explain you how by taking my own life as example. I was born in a small town in Karnataka, India named Chitradurga. I was bought up in Bhadravathi a small steel town in the same state. Studied in a convent school till my tenth. Then moved to the district headquarters to do my pre university in science. Then I was lucky to get a seat in the famous National institute of enginnering, Mysore. This is the same college where co-founder and chief mentor of Infosys, N R Narayanmurthy graduated. Well definitely the WORLD was not flat for me till then.

But then before I entered the final year of my graduation in IT I was recruited by Infosys. That is when I began to see the world. I was trained and later given the confidence to use my engineering skills to build and support applications for clients I had never heard of. The clients were fortune 500 companies and their profits let alone revenues was in billions of dollars.

As my experience grew I was given more responsibilites and the chance to travel to London for one such assignment. Now as many know that British ruled India for more than a century. Many Indians fought and lost lives to make the country free. They looted India of its valuable resources and used bipartisanship as a key approach to rule India. But when it went to extremes India united and fought against the british empire and got the nation free on aug 15, 1947. One thing India benefited by the ruling was the language that the britishers bought. It is the very language I use to exchange my ideas and opinions with clients around the world. Now, here I was using my technical skills doing business with people who treated us like slaves just over 50 years ago.

But in this flat world nobody is your enemy. Everyone is a potential collobarator as the book clearly states time and again. In my current assignment at Melbourne, Australia I am working in a truly multi cultural and geologically diverse team. My team comprises of myself, an Armenian, a Vietnamese and many Australians. I have been deputed/seconded from an Indian based company Infosys technologies Ltd to its subsidiary Infosys Australia. We all work together for supporting business in South Africa. The client is of a british based company. I see the world being flat day in and out. People dial in from cape town,Singapore and Melbourne on every call. We all collaborate with our different accents and sometimes make fun of each others culture at lunch. But we are all players in our own sense in this huge flat world.

The book many a times warns the Americans to wake up before the developing countries like India and China dominate them. One funny quote I would like to pick from the book. Earlier American parents told their kids to finish up the dishes as many kids starve for the same food in India. Now they urge their kids to do the homework else some Indian kid will take his/her job. Indian companies have been able to make profits and grown in huge stature by tagging along with the American companies. Now it is time to move the wheel by a notch. In fact many companies have already started doing that. We have to think ahead into the future. The flat world has given everyone the same opportunity. Notable tool being Internet. We have to make use of this and change the way things happen. We have to start making use of right imaginative brain more and in tandem with our left logical brain. As many famous thinkers have said when a company starts thinking of its memories instead of dreaming it ceases to grow. So instead of being happy and contended with what we have phenomenally achieved we should dream the next big thing and strive to make it a reality. So listen to the famous Aerosmith song “Dream On” on the American [designed in America but made in china] ipod and use your Indian brains to achieve it.

Chetan Bhagat's latest novel!!!

yes you read it right, Chetan bhagat has returned with a new novel. it is titled "The 3 Mistakes of my life" being released on May 8. i am pretty excited about it. will definitely read it as soon as i am able to lay my hands on it. You will find more details about the book here. and by the way his second novel is being made into a movie.

first impression, as also indicated by the cover page is it involves cricket as well. but if i were to write a book the number indicating the mistakes would definitely be a lot higher than on the cover page.

Till my return to india ( which is only when i will be able to read his new book ) i will quench my thirst by re reading his first ( and my most favourite ) book "Five point some one-what not to do at IIT." his second book is titled "one night at the call cener".

let me know which of the first two is your favourite in the comments below. and if you have not read neither, man what have you been busy with till now!!

Venture into the Unknown

Before I begin on the topic I have to apologize for not having blogged this long. Sorry. Don’t expect this to be worth the wait or anything. It hopefully lives to the poor standards of my other posts.

I am sure when people visit different countries for whatever reasons, visiting or work, they see and learn many things. Different people,Culture and place being the obvious ones. I am not going to speak about them. I want to ponder on what changes I discovered in myself. Don’t expect me to say that I have got fit like the many Australians here, but it is my cooking skills. Yes I have started spending more time in the kitchen.Wielding knives, with tears in my eyes i fight many battles with onions. Never in my dreams did I see that I will be cutting vegetables, pouring oil and all the crazy ingredients to prepare my food. But the truth is I have.

In India I and my friends had our own cook who used to come thrice a day to prepare our food and serve it hot at the right time. The only reason I used to switch on the gas stove was for my appetite of coffee at odd hours. Now I rely on the machines for that.
Over here things are a lot different. In my earlier apartment I used to cook food with my friends, discuss the office work and my client with them when cutting vegetables and occasionally slice my own fingers. Now after having moved into a separate apartment I have to handle everything on my own, till my friend joins me after his Indian vacation.

Initially I didn’t like it. Returning home after a tiring day at office you don’t want to wet your hands in doing the cooking chores. But I am surprised to realize that I have started to like it. I wouldn’t dare say that I am ready to serve my food to Gordon ramsay (fame of Kitchen Knightmares and his trademark swearing) and have restricted myself and my friends to be the only rabbits of my kitchen.

I am keen on showing my cookery skills to my family when I return to India. My parents will not be that lucky to wait till then as they will be visiting me here in couple of month’s time. So I am hoping my mom will be able to share a lot of her secrets and hone my skills, before I torture my cousins and others back home.

This part of the house was surely unknown to me until now.So i thought i will pen down history being made in my life that is :). I am curious to know how my friends who are staying away from their parents are coping with their own battles at kitchen, specially boys. Does the onion win or you have the last laugh? So please do share your thoughts,experiences and maybe even recipes in comments below.

Australian Open - New year started lucky

New year started lucky for me. When i received a mail from Tania throwing open 6 corporate gold tickets i had no idea i will win one. all one had to do was open up a spreadsheet filled with figures of my client's performance and zoom in on the required figure and click the appropriate voting button in the mail. so i did, least expecting i will be a winner. after all it was a question to be answered easily. but i got lucky and got the tickets for 15th of jan 2008.

i was thinking of buying tickets and watching the game anyways. but i guess i can put the dollars for better use now ;). the ticket not only offered one of the best seats at center court (rod laver arena) but also free dinner at skyline dining room and free booze.

Few mails on getting there and also a mail on the dress code (damn you executives) were exchanged before we got there. Angela was kind enough to give me a lift to the court. but the two other men who had won the tickets had other plans. so it was going to be me and five other gorgeous ladies ( gorgeous..hmmm.. more by attitude than looks..)

When i entered the dining room with angela and julie we found tania, jad and paula already seated and sipping on red wine. i was more used to beer than wine and so ordered hieneken. after chatting with the ladies for more than 2 hours at the table ( i am more mature now :) ) and gulping in two beers ( wanted to go for more ) we left for the arena.

the first match was between venus williams and.. i didnt even bother to know the other player's name. the game was already in progress and venus won the game in straight sets. but i was more excited about the second match more than the first. Men would watch women's tennis for a reason (..you know what..) more than the game itself.

and so i was ready with the camera and there came roger federer.. man who has won 13 grand slams, 3 short of setting a world record. the court filled with applause and it was really exciting to watch him play live and real. he won the game in straight sets without even sweating much.

it was nice to see the blue plexicushioned surface and having watched two great players games i felt more than satisfied and felt good as i had missed to visit wimbledon when i was at london before.

calling it a night to cherish for more than one reason i walked back to my apartment and bragged a little to my friends who by then had bet 160 dollars on india losing the third test match versus australia. they wanted to be happy at the end of test match. if india won they will be happy for an occurence which is rare to witness. if they lost they will be happy for the money they will make. if they drew the test..well then its money gone for toss.

you can click through the snaps below. enjoy!!

Australian Open

Bill Gates retiring!!!

so the day has come. Microsoft co founder and one of the worlds former most richest man is retiring. in his last keynote at CES (consumer electronics show) he announced that it would be his last address.

throughout the world people have had a love hate relationship with him. guess his riches bought him more enemies than friends. no matter how buggy vista be or how many times apple claims vista to be a copy cat of OS X, bill gates in steve jobs own words was the first to make an industry out of software. Bill even wrote software for one of the versions of Mac in its initial days.

also at his last keynote he launched a video on what his last day would be like. it is really hilarious and features many great stars from hollywood and many politicians of america. Hats off to a great man and hopefully microsoft continues and improves in doing a great job.



you can also view slightly lengthier and better quality version of the video here as well.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080107/bill-gates-last-day-microsoft-video/.

So long Bill.

Australian cricket team equaled the world record??

Australia equaled 16th consecutive test match wins set by Steve waugh's team today. They defeated india in the second test match in the bordar-gavaskar trophy. But their win was not convincing and raised a lot of questions in my mind on the ethical behavior of the australian players.

Rahul dravid and Ganguly's wicket were clearly not out and the entire test match was a scene of foolish decisions made by the umpires which played significant role in their win. How much ever stressed or difficult it may be for the umpires to make decisions on the field they always have the choice of referring to the third umpire. But they continued to raise their fingers towards the sky again and again when not required.

I believe that the ICC should start thinking of imposing regulations on successive bad decisions of the umpires. I would also suggest giving limited chances of power to the players to bring in the third umpire and question the field umpires decisions, just the way it is in tennis.

By the replays it was also obvious that adam gilchrist and mathew clarke clearly had seen that they did not have wickets. but guess they were overcome by the greed to continue their winning streak and create a world record entering their names in the history books.

Like many games, cricket is also not a fool proof game but with so much of money being invested in the game and so much of high profile coverages being made guess the rules of the game has to be amended to make use of the technology used in the coverage. it will then be only the quality of the teams that will drive the outcome of the match and not bad decisions of umpires.

some articles which reveal the details more clearly
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329392.html
and more
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329405.html