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Being from India, such stories hurt. The picture painted being that "outsourcing" to India is a bad. I constantly read / hear about stories from people describing how they did not have a good experience, while working with a company in India. A missed deadline, not constantly being in touch, the end result not being satisfactory enough, the reasons pile up.

I only read about horror stories about things gone wrong while with companies from India. Do projects outsourced to  America, Russia, Canada, {insert any country} never go wrong? Or is it that I only read / click on stories which mention the word India? I am sure it's the latter which is true.

As the painted picture reads in the article and in the comments, not everyone in India is bad to work with. I personally work with and know companies here that do a excellent job at what they do. Sure, sometimes there are failed deliveries on deadlines, but then humans are bad estimators, be it India, America or any other country.

Your process of outsourcing work needs to be examined in more detail, than the country where you choose to outsource. How did you pick the particular company to work with? Was it based on the 'lowest' price quoted? Did you check their portfolio? Did you talk to their existing clients? Was there a trial run involved? How were they to communicate with? When you decided to outsource a $2,00,000 project, I hope you did all of the above and not just pick them cause they were the 'lowest' quote.

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I enjoy birthdays.Not sure when the fun wears off, I surely hope it lasts for a long time from now. Each year, it brings with it a different set of experiences and memories, which you later look back on and think, "it was good to be 25". I wish the fun never stops, and from my experience over the years it only seems to get better as the days go by.

2 days ago while talking to my sister, she asked if I missed college and would go back if given a chance. A few years back, I would have said "yes". College was fun, but I would not want to go back. Things that I learn't, people that I have met and the experiences I have gained, I would not want to un learn.

2011 has been a great year. From a list of few things I wanted to get done this year, most of them got accomplished. As with the previous year, I met a lot of new people, travelled a lot, learn't many new things on the web(coffeescript, ruby on rails, html5, responsive design, fuelphp) and started work on my own product(EvenPick). Some things which did not work out well : wrote less(the last post was in september 2011), did not start my own podcast, plans to launch a coaching program did not turn out well, did not launch the product I have been working on.

Visited quite a few places this year Dubai, Pune, Lonvala, Hyderabad, Delhi, Agra, Udupi, Bangalore, Pondicherry , Goa and Patna.

This year has also been a year full of good experiences. I stopped taking new consulting projects. A few things to focus on now, ensures I do them really well. Plus running a service business in India is not so much fun. Saw Formula One racing live, travelled by Delhi Metro for the first time, saw Taj Mahal for the first time, Dubai was beautiful and fun to travel around, Pondicherry's french colony is worth a visit and Patna is not as bad as many people described it to me.

I also worked alongside some really good people this year. Sahil Parikh, Komal Turkar, Mayur Makheri(have fun in New Zealand), Swati Dash, Himali Girkar, Sanat Hedge and Satya Gupta. I have learn't so much from each of them.

Interesting projects / applications I came across this year: Beanstalkapp, Gitbox, Stypi, Perfios, Instapaper, Pinboard, mlkshk.com and Pagodabox.

Looking forward to new experiences and travel in 2012.

Hope you all have a great day.

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A lot has changed since then, you can now
     - Activate / Kill Servers instances as and when required using Amazon EC2
     - You can have a really web designed website, without writing any code using Squarespace
     - Real time document collaboration? Google docs makes it possible.
     - Need to setup a blog? Wordpress has you covered.

...there are many more examples of technological advances in the web, the list would be too long to cover.

We now focus towards making the web work better for consumers / users.Providing users with a better design / browsing experience is the end goal.

This also means that a role of a 'web developer' changes really quick. No longer is it sufficient to know just "HTML" or "CSS". There is "HTML5" and "CSS3" to learn. Rapid Prototyping, creating mockups and having basic javascript knowledge is now part of the requirement.

If you are a "web programmer", knowing basic "PHP" would get you a job before, but now you are expected to know a lot more.
     - Have you worked with MVC framework?
     - Can you make dynamic responsive web applications using AJAX?
     - How good are you at Javascript?Jquery / Prototype / Mootools.
     - How about adapting to a new framework or a new language? Django? Ruby on Rails?
     - Can you help us migrate to 'MongoDB' / 'Redis'?
     - Have you used GIT before?

There is more to learn each day, as the requirements of the consumer focused web changes. As a web developer / programmer, it is "not enough" to know just "PHP/ MySQL" or "HTML/CSS". It would be 5-6 years back, but not any more. The requirements are changing every month / year. Be ready to keep up.

These are exciting times.There is so much to learn.

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It is much easier to create a Internet based start up these days as compared to 2-3 years ago.A wide range of frameworks make it easy to get started,cloud based hosting,access to freelancers...etc.

Is your start up idea a fun project with no real intention of becoming a business?
Outsource.

Is the start up going to be your primary focus the next few months / year?

Are your technically sound to create the idea yourself?

Yes
Don't Outsource it. It's much harder to co-ordinate, tell someone else what you have in mind, how to picture the end product etc. Plus the idea will keep evolving,once you get started. The freelancer / outsourcing agency might not like this.Plus the time / cost expense would be quite high as compared to doing it your self.

Plus points of doing it yourself include, learning new languages, learning new ways of working, ways to motivate yourself, having fun, all of which will be quite useful moving forward. Outsource parts of product which you are not good at. For e.g Logo , Icons design, if you think you are not good at this.

No
Common advice on the Internet would be partner with someone who is technical. If you find the right person,that would be ideal.But it is often difficult to convince of your idea until you have a product ready to present. Something which the other person can see / use. In this case, Outsource the first version of the product.Once you find the right technical co-founder, he /she can continue from the finished outsourced work.

If you cannot find a technical co-founder and your idea has gained lots of users / interest, hire someone full time to work on the idea as against depending on a freelancer / outsourcing company. The reason I recommend this is because, freelancers / outsourcing agencies are usually involved in multiple projects at one time.Even though they might be a good resource to begin with, having a dedicated resource would really help the product.Someone who thinks / works on the product / idea full time,always benefits over someone who has 2-3 hours per day dedicated to spend on your start up.

I have programming / design knowledge,but I would rather focus on business development / idea
If you have the technical knowledge, put together a list of technical skills someone should have to develop work on the idea. Hire someone with the right technical knowledge required to create the idea. If finding a full time employee is difficult, look for independent contractors, who are ready to dedicate 2-3 months to create the minimum viable version of the product. It could be difficult to convince a programmer to leave a full time job to come work for a start up which barely exists. Independent contractor could do  the job of creating the product which then brings more people on board, once the requirements of your start up increase.

Good luck.

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- I am educating myself about business, project management
- I am Batman
- I am a freelance programmers / interface designer.
- I am taking a break to travel

All of the above were true (other than the Batman part), I learnt quite a lot, the last year, worked on some great projects, with some great people and traveled across Southern India / Dubai / Sharjah. It was quite a great year, looking back now.

"What are you up to?", I still get asked this question very often.Somehow not having "a job" is a bad thing."Why don't you take up a job?", "I know Accenture is hiring, do you want to apply?" and more suggestions from people I care about always come through, but not many wanted to know what I wanted to do.

The EVIL PLAN!

Everyone needs a EVIL PLAN!  A year and a half later, I am ready with mine.

 - One of my new year goals was to "Work with awesome companies on great ideas", and I recently got asked to be part of one such journey in a start up. Will be sharing more details as things unfold. Excited to be part of an awesome team, working on a great product.

- Float Gravity Web Studio's. My business which is going to create beautiful / simple / useful web products.
I have already started working on the first product. You can read more about it on the blog

Really excited about the road ahead.

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1) Make more money(Freelance / Part time job / Investments)

2) Spend less than what you earn(Don't buy an Audi, when all you can afford is an Ford right now)

3) Have some savings

The basic rules make a big impact.

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I used to suffer from the problem of "doing things now". I would make a list of tasks which I needed to accomplish during the day, but till last month, I noticed that I would only accomplish 2-3 tasks from the list of 5-6.

I would feel guilty about not being the quickest to reply to emails from clients, feel guilty about taking 5 hours to accomplish a task which should take 10-15 mins. While trying to accomplish these minor tasks, I would lag behind on the tasks in the list which needed to get done. All these and more made me sad at the end of day, even while knowing I was doing a lot of things during the day.

Schedule, most people have one. What's important to you now, might be number 4-5 on the list of the other person. Realizing / reading and implementing this for myself made all the difference.

I came up with a new system for myself, which leaves me with a much happier state of mind at the end of the day, maybe it helps you too.

- Make schedule for things you need to attend to the next day, on the night before.(I use TeuxDeux)

- Any new tasks, goes into the list of tasks to accomplish during the day.

- Dont attend to new tasks now. Complete the task at hand first, before having a re look at the list and checking if the new task is of high importance. What on the list can be moved to attend to this task now.

Most things are not truly urgent.

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I like the part where he says "you would not go to the gas station and expect it to be free".

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We have started to expect the same from Emails. There is lot to be said about "Emails". A quick search will get you information on how you can respond faster, on how you should keep the reply short and a lot more. I am sure you have read most of them. The issue I am addressing is "expectations". Expectations like, the reply should be quick / now.

Not everything is urgent. What seems urgent to you, might not be a priority for the person you emailed.Realizing this has made a lot of difference for me. I am now more patient when expecting replies.

Everyone has their own day to day schedule.Everyone's working to make something better, to address certain issues in their personal life / private life and everyone wants to reply to every email they get. If they know you are expecting a reply they certainly want to. I certainly want to reply to all emails I get immediately. But I fail at times. Not because I am avoiding the email, it's just that,at that moment, I only had 30 mins to give to my emails and had to move to something else.

If something is really urgent, call the other person.If they don't respond, maybe they can't answer the phone right now and are busy doing something else. Leave a message. If the person on the other end feels it's urgent they will call back. People are good that way.

Related : Real time vs Slow time

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It's always nice meeting friends you have not met since a long time. The joy of catching up on lost time, discussing things you thought were important before which now don't seem to matter. The girls you chased and want wanted to date, who is now married to someone else and the fact that it does seem to bother you as much as it hurt back when you knew she had a boyfriend.

Things change, they sure do and all you can do is move forward, taking a few memories from the past and moving forward making new ones as you go. Are your old friends a part of it or not is entirely up to you, but you make a choice to move ahead with a plan you had in mind on what the future would look like for you and sure hope that old friends stay with you through these times.

I have never been a believer in the brightest kid always making it to the top in the corporate ladder or in life. Although my teacher's and family members had me believe that "if I did not score well in the maths test(i was always bad at maths), that would be the end of good life ahead", or it would mean that I had no job, no income, nothing to live on. I have always believed in people who are smart. Street smartness, people skills, and a good attitude towards life is important to me. More important than how much you scored in your 10th/12th and other competitive exams. I do realise that these results are important, but for me the other skills matter more. How do I determine this for each person I meet?, that I cannot tell you, I just know. Just like I know, today is going to be a good day and that 2012 is not going to the end of the world.

I met a old friend after a long time, this Friday. I have always liked him, I still do. I consider him to be one of my closest friends. I have learnt a lot from him. I like his attitude towards life, the way he deals with people and how he is good with people he interacts with. We were considered to be the "you stay out of our class" kinds when in school. Am I trying to be like him? No. But I have learnt a lot from him, similar to how I learned to be good to every person I meet from my dad, and how courtesy is really important from my mom. I learn a lot of things from people I meet every day.

Self Improvement is a constant thing I am working on. Does not mean I am not happy being me,but I always know I could do better. It's important for me to know that things are moving ahead, if not according to the plan I set, but I like to know that they are making progress. Plans are good to have, but they change from time to time, and as long as you are progressing towards what you are aiming for, these changes can be good.

But somethings need to change, in my life, maybe in your too. I realized after meeting my friend, that I was not making good progress.He told me, I was not.He tells me I could do more, and I know he is right. I could do more. I have started  working on my list, a list to guide me through things I need to accomplish. If you think you can do more, start working on that list. The to do list application does not matter, a pen and paper works for me. Decide on things you want to change and make them happen. It might take a week, a month, a year, but I am sure it will make you feel good when things start to happen. The list is not the end, as you move ahead, you will realize there is more to be done. Add these to the list.

Some people might not agree with the changes, some people you will have to disappoint, some people will tell you, you will "fail", but people who stay with you through it all, are the people who matter the most.

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This article today on my early morning scan through my RSS feed saddened me quite a bit. In a country where millions of people graduate, every few are deemed fit to get a job. The reasons the article states are from lack of being able to converse in English, lack of confidence and from reading between the lines it's not knowing what to do with their life.

It's easier to blame the education system, but this time I will not blame them.I believe they are doing the best they can, after dealing with government, people, employees and other things they have to deal with on a regular basis.

I am calling up the people graduating, people unable to find a job.The ball's in your court. Remember Chalta nahi hai. If it was ok not to speak good English, I would not have come across such an article. If it was ok not to have confidence in what speak, the job would be yours.I can go on, but then it's easier to criticize and difficult to provide suggestions, so here it goes :

So how do you tackle this?

Language

If you are graduating from college and do talk in English in college, I am sure you have come across many of your friends pulling you down by saying "English is not our main language, talk in {insert regional language here}" or people calling you a show off for talking in English. My suggestion "ignore". I am not suggesting that you stop conversing in {regional language}, but at the same time make sure that you converse in English as much as possible. 

Stay with people who support / encourage / inspire / give feedback. This suggestion is not just for people in college. Follow it all through your adult life.

Improve

Think the knowledge you gained from school /college / education institute was enough? Do you think the language you studied back in college has stop evolving? If it's like most things, I am sure it has not stopped. What made you stop learning about the improvements?

Stagnant knowledge does not do much good. People assume that college was the end of the road. Either you get a job or you are unemployed. If you get a job, congrats, but please don't stop improving / learning. The knowledge you gained 1-2 years ago might soon be outdated.  If you don't have a job, then the knowledge you gained at college / university was not enough. You still have more to learn. About things you learned in college and skills life demands in general.

Don't stop. Keep improving.

When does improving of skills stop? Well for me, never. Unless you have a million dollars in bank account and you decide to live off that plus it's interest for the rest of the life.

But then I hear Warren Buffet is reading company profiles / new areas of growth / investing every day. You decide.

Read

Goes well with "Improve". Read about subjects / topics which interest you. Keep yourself updated with what is happening in your area of study / job. More knowledge about something never hurt anyone. We could all do with less time in front of television.

Positive Attitude

A really important skill, which many have spoken about and I still see missing in many people I meet.

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Would you be sad or happy most of the times?

Would you bore the audience by being un interesting?

Will you make people cry?

Will you make them laugh?

Will you be more nice to people than you are now?

Would today be a interesting part in the movie?

Will people tell others about the movie?

How many stars / reviews would it get?

Will your movie win the awards for the "most interesting", "audience
choice", "best screenplay", "best story"?

If not, what would you change?

Think about it. Be part of a interesting un edited movie, a movie
which would get 5/5, the best screenplay, the best story!

Lights, Camera, Action!

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I was at Reliance Customer care center yesterday trying to get my "Mobile Connect" device fixed. It worked fine till a few days ago,but had stopped to work.

I went in, got my token number, told the guy about my problem and was told to wait for my turn. After waiting for 20 minutes, my token number was called for. In the twenty minutes wait time, I noticed quite a lot of people complain,

- The guy on the phone shouting at the person on the other end. He got a bill for Rs.4,000 when he hardly used the phone.

- The lady who wanted the address changed, had filed a request last month, and the bill was still being mailed to the previous address.

- The guy who could not access the network even though he had enough balance on the phone

- The old guy who wanted to get his phone disconnected, but his previous request was still not attended for.

It was not a good feeling, being part of a service / company , the customers of which had so much to complain about.

When it was my turn at the desk, I told the lady about my problem and she started to check what the problem was. I started to make small conversations and asked her if they were not frustrated with the whole issue of people complaining about the network and the service. "Why don't you guys fix most basic issues issues at the ground level?".

Her reply "if we fix all the issues at the core for every common issues and the customers stops complaining, many of us will loose our jobs.We don't want that". I was shocked and amazed at her reply. They wanted customers to have problems. How can that be a good thing? Won't that mean, many customer leaving your service for good and the company not having a future to look forward to.

It's a catch 22 situation, when thinking about customer service jobs or of that of a doctor / person providing mental health support. These roles rely / want people to have have problems. Else would be tough to survive as a profession / business / division.

What happened to my "Mobile Connect" device? Well I got them to disconnect it and walked  out.I am not ready to be another complaining customer for Reliance.

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