I want to be a Project Leader .. in 2 years ..

Guess what .. this was a response given to me by a non engineering fresher graduate in response to a question, “where do you want to see yourself in 2 years time if you join us?” !

Of course, the person was not selected. Moreover, this was not the first time I got such an answer from the fresher non-engineering graduate who is aspiring to be an IT professional.

Its such a shame and probably now has come in a highlight because of the wonderful movie 3 Idiots, that our education system promotes only competition of marks and not of knowledge.

I wrote an article last year about the lack of innovation in India (not Indians) and the root cause in education system and for some reason, it was evident that the education system also gives importance to role or status of a person rather than the knowledge he has got within.

Another thing that made me unhappy about the answers I received during the interviews was the fact that none of the candidates gave me an answer that In next 2-3 years I want to be more knowledgeable and seek expertise in a technology and domain. 

Every one wanted to be A project leader .. in 2 years !

 

Recommended reading

Lack of innovation in India – Root cause in education system?

You have got a new year wish …. via BCC !

I am sure in the flood of wishes over the new year, quite a few of you would have received the wishes in the form of “BCC” email.  If yes, what was your reaction? Do you prefer receiving the wishes in the “BCC” ?

For some reason, I have not been a fan of either sending or receiving the wishes to your office colleagues in BCC. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I somehow feel it devaluates the wish and the person to whom you are wishing.

I know its more of the matter of convenience of sending everyone a wish in one single email without anyone knowing the final list of recipients. However, the convenience is for the sender than the recipient of the email.

There are some scenarios where you want to send email to a group of individuals where you do not want the recipients to see or know each other’s address or do a reply-all and start an email chain. Use of the BCC makes sense in such scenarios.

However, at times I have seen a manager using the team’s address in the BCC and sending wish emails to the team. This, to me, is utter silly and does not add value.  If you are anyways sending the email to the team using the team’s distribution list, why don’t just put that in the TO list and send the email?

If someone creates an outlook template (2 mins job) and tries to send the personalized wishes to everyone in the team, it would make everyone feel a lot better and feel bit more valued than receiving an email wish through BCC. Also, there are tools available in the market that would allow you to do so .. so why don’t just use them?

Any comments?

Avatar, stunning .. but !

I watched Avatar today, although late,  in the full 3D mode and I must say I loved the way the movie was made. Hats off to James Cameron and team for making Avatar one of the best movie experiences of all time!

Its not the case that movies such as these have not been made in past. I have seen quite a few IMAX movies and all of them were made in an equal impressive way.

However, the biggest success of Avatar lies in making, the use of the technology to portray a story and a movie that can be shown outside the “IMAX” boundary with an equal effect !

This is really a great stuff !

The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of the way the movies are made and shown to the audiences. Its expected that the way the film was developed, using the stereoscopic cameras that were especially developed for this movie making,  will change the way the movies are made in future. And, if this is going to be the future, them I am really up for it.

Probably this was the first alien and war movie that I was watching where I actually wanted humans to lose !

Few things I liked in Avatar are,

• Pandora is a beautiful place and if there is any place on earth which looks similar, I would want to visit it once in my lifetime !
• Na’vi’s are adorable characters, although huge they look great !
• The technology that were used by the humans in avatar to display information, was interesting and pretty much sums how the computer user interactions will happen in future
• The life ecosystem of Avatar is a great concept. I wish humans could have had this.
• The wildlife, flora & fauna shown in Avatar is simply stunning !
• Stunning computer visuals

Few things I want to comment on,

• The story of Avatar did not fascinate me much. Yes, it was novel to see Humans as aliens on another planet (in case of Avatar, moon), but still its usual intra-planetary warfare which is not a new concept.
• I am unsure how much effect the 2D version of the movie will have on its audience. I would have loved to buy a DVD of the movie when it would have been out, however, since it would not have same effect as 3D, I would hesitate to buy it.  Until, the 3D TV becomes a reality (it exists today though) and is available for consumers to buy
• I also felt that Avatar is a movie that you leave behind you in the theatre than taking it in your mind. I have seen quite a few movies (Titanic including) that stays with you, in your mind, for a long time.  For some reason, Avatar did not !

I am sure most of you have seen Avatar by now and must have liked it or would have had your own opinion on the movie.  What you think, let me know, leave a comment ! Thanks

Last blog post of the decade !

As the ‘noughties’ decade comes to an end with the stroke of midnight tonight, I would want to wish all the readers and my friends a very happy new year !

I hope that the last decade has been great one for you all and I wish that the upcoming year and the decade will be even better in your personal & work life.

Cheers !

What exactly is collaboration?

Recently I have been part of few discussions on how to increase collaboration within enterprise. The forum was volunteered by enthusiastic professionals who wanted to deliver value to their work through collaboration. Excellent thought !

When we gathered to discuss about Collaboration, questions came about What exactly is Collaboration? How we can achieve it? How different is it than team work?

Simple questions, one might think, however when the question was asked to everyone round the table, we got few interesting answers.

Few of those I would like to mention as follows,

“Collaboration is what the F1 team does to ensure that the driver is on the track within shortest time. Its just another form of Teamwork”

“Collaboration is what the Power Inverter company does with the Battery company to provide the customers a full set of power solution. Its more about knowing your strengths & weaknesses and match it with someone else’s so create a powerful combination that enables more success”

“Collaboration is a process of knowledge management where people are important, but outcome is even more important.  Look at Wikipedia, we have world’s biggest knowledge bank in one place, and we don’t even know who created it. Collaboration focuses on end outcome, rather than who does it.”

Interesting !

Let me know what you think about collaboration, post a comment, I would be glad if you could ! Thank you !